


Tau Theta

by hellostarlight20



Series: We Are Never Alone [17]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 50th fixit, Adventure, Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, F/M, Rewrite, Romance, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-02-22 08:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13163349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellostarlight20/pseuds/hellostarlight20
Summary: From wikipedia: In ancient times,tauwas used as a symbol for life or resurrection, whereas the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet,theta, was considered the symbol of death.Part of We Are Never Alone, but can be read as a stand alone 50th rewrite. (Established Ten/Rose relationship)Rose thought she was meeting her daughter’s new girlfriend when she blinked and ended up on Karn right as the Eighth Doctor was about to drink from the chalice the Sisterhood of Karn offered him.Time is in flux, people are trying to change the Doctor’s timeline, and Rose refuses to allow any of that. Even if she has to fight all her Doctors to stop it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to [Mrs Bertucci](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsbertucci/pseuds/mrsbertucci) for the amazing beta and to FadeWithFury for the awesome pict she made for Aeonish. Check it out here on chapter 1 on Tumblr.

1.  
Rose blinked. Disoriented, slightly dizzy, she did so again.

The scene didn’t change and it certainly wasn’t the scene she saw just a moment ago. No, that was a lovely scene of a Laracopan sunset at their favorite restaurant. This—this was a rock and a poorly lighted one at that.

“I was…I was with Clara,” she said aloud. Just to hear herself speak.

That verbal assurance grounded her even as her legs wobbled and her knees threatened to buckle. In the back of her mind she heard the Doctor screaming for her and tried to focus enough to reassure him, but his panic gave her a headache.

She was fine…ish. Alive. Should’ve said alive there. And safe. Well…not being attacked. Semantics.

Rose concentrated, but her pain spiked through her head. Her children also called for her, five voices clamoring for attention over her own. It was enough to drive a person barmy. She tried to reassure all her family, but couldn’t concentrate on one of them enough to calm any of them.

Let alone herself.

Swallowing her panic, she dipped her hand in her trouser pocket and gripped her sonic. The smooth, round comfort eased some of the tension tightening her shoulders.

“We were…we were sitting by the fountain, waiting for Jenny and the Doctor to stop tinkering with her TARDIS.”

That little hole-in-the-wall restaurant on Laracopa she and the Doctor loved so much. The one her first Doctor took her to before they had made love for the first time in the wildflowers. Today was another first: the first time Jenny brought Clara to meet them. Rose was so excited to meet the woman her eldest daughter loved. 

She felt the Doctor, the strong blue-silver of his mind quite clearly. He franticly shouted for her, but he also sounded amused. It was very odd and didn’t help her headache at all. Jenny was fainter, as were her other children—

“This is not Laracopa.”

“No,” a smooth voice said in a slightly amused tone.

Rose whirled around, whipped out the sonic, and crouched, ready to fight. Her head throbbed and the room spun but she held her sonic steady before her.

“It’s Karn.”

“Karn?” Rose repeated.

How had she not known someone else was in the room— _cave_? Cave…she knew this place. No, no she didn’t and the faint pounding behind her eyes told her what she should’ve realized in the first place.

“I’m out of time.” She slowly rose, fingers loosening around her sonic though she didn’t return it to her pocket.

The man looked at her, one dark eyebrow rising. Curly hair a mess, dirt and blood on his face, and clothes that had seen far better days, he looked like he had survived a battle. More than one. His battered leather coat looked the worse for wear.

Oh. Ohhh…no wonder she felt the Doctor’s mind so clearly and yet didn’t. He stood before her. Well, not her actual Doctor, not the one she left on Laracopa, through no fault of her own and rather mysterious circumstances. The man who stood before her was a previous regeneration.

_That_ regeneration.

Rose slammed every mental wall she had into place. It only increased her own Doctor’s franticness, but she refused to be the one to tell _this_ Doctor his future.

“I’ve never been to Laracopa,” he said in that smooth, slightly amused tone Rose recognized all too well. The cultured words slid over her skin, a caress all their own. “Always wanted to go, I hear the flower fields are amazing when the sun sets.”

“Yeah,” she whispered around a dry throat. “It’s our favorite planet.”

Stop talking. _Stop talking. Stop talking!_ She really needed to just stop. No, what she needed was to leave, she needed to get out of this place, find her way back to her Doctor and her TARDIS and her time. She needed to get out of the Time Lock she knew she somehow landed in.

And how the hell had she breached the Time Lock?

“You’re a long way from there,” he said and walked around her as if studying a new and fascinating specimen.

Which she supposed she was. What kind of vibes did she give off? Damn. Rose hastily strengthened her mental shields and hoped it wasn’t too late.

That eyebrow rose again over beautiful blue eyes. Damn. Too late.

“How did you end up in the middle of Karn, then?”

“I’ve no idea,” Rose said honestly. “Witchcraft?” Her lips twitched.

The Doctor before her, younger but no less scarred or hardened, raised his other eyebrow. Oh, she really liked that whole eyebrow thing. Well, she liked his whole face. Her hand moved up and reached to caress his cheek before she realized what it was doing.

Rose hastily dropped it but didn’t look away.

“Hmm.” He nodded, watching her, crystal eyes assessing her every move, every word. “Well, you’ve interrupted a rather important ritual, I’m afraid.” He waved a hand around the cave and for the first time Rose realized it wasn’t so much a cave as a room carved from stone.

Same thing, probably.

“Ritual,” she repeated.

“Yes, I’m needed elsewhere.” His lips twitched but not in amusement. Rose knew that move, no matter the face, no matter the regeneration or age. She knew that twitch.

Pain. Grief. Anger.

This Doctor looked a cross between tranquil charming and coiled power —she’d seen him like that plenty of times and it never boded well. It usually meant he was about to do something stupidly self-sacrificing. Damn man. Rose licked her lips and nodded slowly, though she didn’t know what she nodded in acknowledgment of.

“Elsewhere?” She asked and wondered if being time-displaced resulted in repeating the most inane words.

“Yes, but not this body I’m afraid.” He held up a chalice, no doubt the cause of the horrid smell Rose tried not to notice. “I’m about to regenerate.”

“Regenerate?” Rose blinked again. “Bollocks.”

His lips twitched and he toasted her with a move so full of sarcastic irony she almost laughed. It caught in her throat and a thousand thoughts raced through her brain. Shoving aside the whos and whats and what the fucks, Rose lunged forward, despite the pain.

“You can’t!” Rose smacked the chalice from the Doctor’s hands. “This is so wrong.”

He raised that eyebrow again and his eyes flicked from hers to the very prominent Gallifreyan ring she wore on her left hand, then back again. The marriage pendant she also wore burned beneath her thin jumper, but Rose curled her hands into fists to stop from touching it.

“Let me—just—just—just let me think.” She held up a hand, thumb playing with her wedding ring. “Don’t drink.”

He gave her an amused look and pointedly looked at the floor where the beverage spilled onto the dirt. Then the Doctor crossed his arms over his chest and looked so coolly sophisticated, she wondered if that survived from regeneration to regeneration. Rose eyed the vile drink and wondered how eager he was to complete this _ritual_.

She swallowed and squinted. It eased the headache just enough for her to concentrate. 

“If we’re in the middle of the Time War,” she began and ignored his impatient snort. “Then you should be on the front lines. But you’re here, on Karn. Karn, Karn…where have I heard that before?”

“The Sisterhood of Karn?” he asked, curiosity in his tone now.

Good. She could work with curiosity. It meant she had time.

“Pythia.” Rose snapped her fingers and nodded then instantly stilled. Movement hurt; everything hurt. “The Seers of Pythia.” She scowled and wanted to curse or spit on them or whatever it was one did when one wanted to remove a curse of evil. Evil eye? She never did understand that.

“Yes,” he said slowly now and kicked the chalice out of his way. “They’re the last remnants of them.”

“Pythian Curse and all that.” Rose waved it away. “Figures.” She eyed him, torn between anger and understanding. “And you trusted them?”

“They’ve no reason to lie to me.” He leaned against the table, arms folded negligently over his chest.

Damn but he looked handsome. If time weren’t literally of the essence, and she wasn’t trapped in the Time War, Rose’d seriously consider shagging him right then and there. She didn’t rule it out, no matter the circumstances.

However, Rose wasn’t fooled. She’d seen that stance too many times to be fooled. It was his go on, impress me stance.

It was also damn sexy.

She swallowed hard and tried to focus between this Doctor’s resigned amusement and her Doctor’s desperation and the burning headache behind her eyes and the screaming along her skin that told her all of this was so very wrong.

Her nose twitched and she wondered what was in the concoction. She scrunched up her nose and met the Doctor’s gaze again. He really was handsome and despite the headache and wrongness, her body only knew the man before her was the Doctor.

It didn’t care which regeneration.


	2. Chapter 2

2.  
Rose ignored the tingle of awareness, the draw to this rather sexy Doctor, and focused. She really needed to, after all—the man before her wasn’t supposed to regenerate from a Pythian concoction. She knew exactly when he regenerated and from what, and it wasn’t some forced nasty-smelling brew.

“Regenerate into whom? Why force a regeneration?”

The Doctor shrugged, that negligent roll of his shoulders her first Doctor was so very good at. It was his ‘I know but am not telling’ look. He glanced over his shoulder, but no one entered the room. Why not? Did they leave him to regenerate alone? Did they not wish to witness their own work?

Fury surged through Rose. Anger for leaving him to regenerate alone, for forcing this on him for whatever unknown reason. And at him, her precious Doctor, for going along with it when he questioned every other damn thing in the universe.

Ice settled in her veins with such surety it rocked Rose where she stood. 

“They’re manipulating timelines. They want to force a regeneration on you—and believe me when I say we’re having words about this, Mister-I-question-the universe-except-when-it-comes-to-me. This makes no sense. If they gave you that drink.” Rose jerked her chin at the chalice, eyes on his. “Then why not witness their handiwork? Why not see you’ve actually regenerated?”

“I said I’d drink it. Don’t need a witness for that.” But his smooth voice sounded harsh now, angry and sad and defeated. Already defeated.

“But what if you didn’t?” Rose looked around. “There’s another exit, why do they think you wouldn’t leave?”

She motioned to the small door on the opposite end of the room, barely noticeable. If there was one thing she learned in her years of traveling with the Doctor, it was to locate each and every exit within moments of entering a room.

Saved time on escaping later.

“And why do they want you to drink it anyway?”

“I’m already dead.” The blunt words startled her. “Died crashing into the planet. They just staved off regeneration until they got their way.” The bitter words hung between them, angry and heavy and all that loathing directed at himself.

“But they didn’t,” Rose whispered. “I know they didn’t because you never said anything about this.”

“Oh?” Once more his gaze flicked to her ring. Rose’s hand automatically rested on her pendant. She quickly dropped her hand, but those keen eyes already saw her movement. “Talk a lot about the War, do I?”

“You…don’t seem surprised I’m from the future,” she ventured. Rose pressed her fingers into her thigh instead, to stop from reaching for him. “Or that I know if you’d talk about this.”

“I’ve seen stranger things.” The Doctor nodded to her ring, her pendant. He tapped his temple.

“Hmm, yes,” she murmured in agreement. Then, frustrated asked, “But I still don’t understand why. Why do they want you to regenerate? Why do they want…oh. A warrior. They want a warrior. Not the Doctor.”

He flinched. Though she didn’t see timelines like her family, Rose knew. She’d traveled with the Doctor a good long while, she knew paths, choices, options. The divergence lay before her. Was this a circular paradox? Or some other paradox? Or was the Sisterhood manipulating timelines. But why? For what purpose?

“The Doctor doesn’t fight. He makes things better.” He snorted and again the bitterness lay heavy in the action. “Or I try to. Not sure what ‘better’ I can make things anymore.” He ran a hand down his face. “Or if I ever did.”

“But you don’t need to fight to make things better.” Rose stepped forward, slowly so as not to startle him though he didn’t look skittish. Only resigned. She raised her left hand and took his naked, left hand and held tight. “You were there, you saw everything.”

Suddenly angry, the Doctor demanded, “Who are you?” 

“You know,” she whispered.

She licked her lips again and slowly, brick by brick, lowered her mental defenses. When she reached for his mind, the Doctor didn’t seem surprised, though he did jerk as if she’d slapped him. Despite the dank darkness of the cave and the desolation coming off the Doctor, the instant their minds connected bright warmth flowed over her. Silver-blue light she instantly recognized. Embraced.

“My Doctor,” Rose said, voice low. “I do know what happens because you told me.” She grasped both of his hands in hers. Lifting them to her arms, she held them over her marriage tattoos.

It didn’t matter her jumper covered them from the rest of the world. The instant he closed his hands around her biceps, he jerked as if an electrical shock jolted through him.

The Doctor opened and closed his mouth a couple times, then shook his head. Rose wanted to run her fingers through his hair, not the long curls she’d seen in photos or TARDIS video, but the shorter and just as lovely curls he now wore. She wanted to kiss him, taste this Doctor, feel his body against hers.

Never let it be said she hadn’t meant her vows about loving him no matter the body.

“It has to end,” he snapped then dropped his hands. “If I don’t end it, the entirety of creation will die.”

Rose slowly shook her head and once more reached out to take his hand. Though she did her best to keep their future conversations about the Time War firmly behind her telepathic walls, she did let loose a hint of future happiness.

“That’s true.” She watched his eyes widen. “But who do you want to be when you do that? A warrior? Or the Doctor?”

“Who are you?” He demanded again. His voice, harsh and rough choked with emotion. He didn’t let his own mental shields crumble, but there was a part of him that reached for her. He also, she was pleased to note, did not release her hand.

“You know,” she repeated in a clear voice.

“That’s impossible,” he said instead of agreeing with her statement.

Rose grinned and tilted her head to the side. “Not impossible, just a bit unlikely.”

The Doctor snorted. His hand tightened around hers and for a moment Rose wanted to tell him everything. She swallowed it all back and carefully rebuilt her shields.

If he regenerated now, would she still meet her first Doctor? If he drank that retched potion, would Rose find her family on Laracopa? Or would they—her Doctor, her children, the universe she knew—be wiped from existence? And what of her? What happened to her?

“If you do it, if you drink that horrid thing, we’ll never meet.” She shook her head. “Life is complicated,” Rose amended. “But I’m sure you know that better than anyone. We, this you, and I, were never supposed to meet.” She tilted her head and raised her hand to finger the soiled and torn cravat around his throat. “But I have to say, I love the scarf.”

He scoffed. “A remnant of a different part of my life, I’m afraid.” He paused and eyed her.

“Nope!” Rose grinned at his unspoken question. “Not gonna happen. I know better than that.”

She stroked the scarf, dirty and torn, but still so him, then trailed her fingers up his cheek to brush his curls off his forehead. 

“Oh, yes.” She nodded, one long nod, and didn’t bother to hide her smile. “Definitely sexy.” Rose tilted her head and let her tongue tease the corner of her mouth.

She was not disappointed when the Doctor’s gaze narrowed in on it. Arousal buzzed through her blood, but Rose—admirably—refrained from doing anything more than cupping his cheek.

“If you’re meant to be dead,” she said slowly, “and if the Sisterhood stopped you from regenerating, when does that wear off?”

“Eh?” He shook his head, captured her hand to his cheek and closed his eyes. As if starved for physical affection. He held her hand for only for a moment, then dropped his hand but didn’t straighten from her touch. “No idea. Didn’t give it much thought.”

And she heard the sorrow, the deadness in his tone. Her heart broke for him and suddenly Rose remembered being a nineteen-year-old running to the Doctor and his TARDIS, running into a life with a broken, devastated man.

“Why would they stave off regeneration?” Rose wondered. Jaw clenched she tried not to give into the pain. It bloomed behind her eyes, even though they touched. Much as she loved her family, she really wanted them silent at the moment. “Because they’re after something else. What?”

“What else do I have to give? I’ve helped where I could, running supplies between stations, conveying Dalek movements to Romana. Now I’ve agreed to fight…” but the Doctor trialed off. “If I give up a regeneration, I’m shortening my life.”

“But if you’re already dead—”

He closed his eyes, presumably doing an internal check on his body. The Doctor slammed his hand on the stone table in frustration. Rose didn’t drop her hand from his cheek and sent all the love and comfort she had through that physical connection.

“I can’t tell.” She felt his gratefulness at her touch, but his voice remained hard and angry. “My body feels like nothing.”

“How can they stave off regeneration?” Rose demanded. She pressed the heel of her other hand to her eye but it did little to alleviate the pain.

The Doctor brushed his fingertips over her temples, and the pounding lessened. She had a feeling the pain was from being so far from her family—being out of time. More, it was the pain of one Doctor shouting for her in panic with another standing right before her.

Or maybe not, same mind, yeah? Rose had no idea. But it hurt like hell.

“How is that even possible?” Rose wondered.

He shrugged. “It’s Karn. Who the hell knows?”

“You’re not dead.”

“No, I’m not. I think you’re right.” He sighed and scrubbed his hands down his face. When he did that, he looked so much like both incarnations of the Doctor Rose loved, it twisted something inside her. “But why bother? Why use me like that?”

“Why change your timeline?”

His head shot up. “It’s not my timeline they’re changing or not only my timeline.”

“It’s mine, too.” Rose swallowed. Damn it, she knew timelines were at stake. They always were. Cold, terrified for herself and her family, Rose pushed her fear to the side and did her best to concentrate on not letting that timeline happen. “If you regenerate now, what does that do to the rest of your regenerations? What does that do to your life? What does that do to…us?”

“Shortens it.” His lips twisted at the thought. “Each of my regenerations lives a short enough time as is. I’m afraid I’m not very cautious with my own life. But if I run out of regenerations before I get everything finished…”

“It doesn’t matter. Even if you didn’t, if they’re trying to change your life. Me, our family our…children.” The Doctor started at that, but Rose ignored him, mind racing. “All of it. If they change that—but why would they want to?”

“There is a balance to the universe.” A new voice startled Rose and she swung around. “You’ve upset the balance.”

Rose snorted. She didn’t know who the woman was, with her wild greying hair and tattered robes, or why she thought balance was so important, but she didn’t care.

“No one threatens my family,” she snapped.

“The wolf is at the door.” The woman spat the words like a curse.


	3. Chapter 3

3.  
Rose stilled. Ice ran down her arms and through her veins. She reached for the Doctor, the man who remembered marrying her, but his brilliant blue-silver presence faded. She curled her hands at her sides, desperate for the Doctor’s touch. Even her headache eased, her family’s voices silent for a precious, terrifying moment.

“Wolf?” She repeated the word slowly. “Why would you say that?”

The woman didn’t answer, but her lips pressed into a thin line. The Doctor moved to stand partially in front of her, but Rose stepped beside him. She needed no one’s protection. Uncurling her hands, she reached for his—still her Doctor.

His fingers felt familiar around hers, even though he was a different man. Well, different body at least. His touch comforted her, grounded her, warmed the cold settling in her veins.

“It’s a human saying,” Rose pressed. “The wolf is at the door. A very human saying—something about hunger or danger waiting for you. Or poverty maybe.”

“It means starvation—you can no longer keep the outside from coming into your home.” 

Rose frowned, glancing from the Doctor back to the woman in front of her—who did not seem at all surprised to see Rose here. “So why would the Sisterhood of Karn, a hundred million lightyears away and a hundred times more advanced despite your personal hygiene, use such a uniquely human saying?”

“And why,” the Doctor asked, “are they using it in relation to me? A better question is: why force me to regenerate?”

“The wolf is hungry and thinks to devour. She thinks herself formidable,” the priestess scoffed.

“No,” Rose insisted, voice strong and confident. “She’s more formidable than even that. The Bad Wolf created herself to protect the universe.”

Well, to protect the Doctor, but why quibble over semantics? Her hand squeezed his, and Rose wondered if the Doctor, this Doctor, understood the significance of Bad Wolf.

“You’ve upset the balance.”

Rose dropped his hand and took an angry step closer, focused on the woman who threatened her family. Beside her, the Doctor stood strong and proud, as if he did, indeed, know what Bad Wolf meant. Or sensed its purpose, its significance. He didn’t try to stop her, didn’t question or scoff, but stood beside her in support.

He believed her. Rose bared her teeth in a semblance of a smile. The Karn priestess tilted her chin but didn’t step back, despite the flicker of fear in her eyes.

“I’d watch out for the wolf,” the Doctor said quietly. His words shot through the cavern.

“No one threatens my family.”

The woman smiled, cold, angry, triumphant. “It’s already too late.”

“I am the Bad Wolf,” Rose stated. “I create myself. And I can take care of myself. But if you so much as—”

The Doctor’s hand gripped her shoulder, stopping her. Vibrating with anger, with the storm raging through her, Rose looked at the man who eventually became her lover, her husband, the man she’d love throughout her life and his.

“How’d you get here?” He asked, low and urgent.

Rose blinked at the non sequitur. “No idea.”

“Think!” he hissed. “What happened, what were you doing, what made you arrive here?”

“We were on Laracopa,” she told him softly. 

Behind her, evil Priestess looked on and chanted too low for Rose to hear, but Rose focused on the Doctor’s question. She closed her eyes, trusting him to protect her from whatever Evil Priestess did behind Rose.

The warm breeze, scented with fragrant Laracopa flowers, brushed over her skin, and the sun beat down on her. Rose heard the splash of the fountain from where she and Clara sat on the bench by the restaurant, the dull buzz of conversation; she saw Clara, nervous and fidgety though she tried to hide it.

Meeting the mum was never easy no matter how old the daughter, and Rose sympathized with Clara. Opening her eyes, she met the Doctor’s. For a heartbeat, she expected the warm, loving brown of her husband’s, not that sharp, wary, pain-filled ones of the Doctor before her.

“Clara and I exited our TARDIS into the alley.” Her lips twitched and she showed him a mental image of the alleyway. “It’s the one you always park in because it’s near the restaurant and easy enough to find if we need to run.”

Sexy eyebrow shot up again and the Doctor’s lips twitched. “I imagine we need to do that quite often,” he said drolly.

“To be fair, it was only that once. And it wasn’t our fault.”

“Well, that’s a change.” He joked, but underneath their banter, Rose felt Time slipping away.

Evil Priestess’s chanting remained constant, but Rose spoke faster. “Clara and I sat by the fountain and waited while the Doctor—” Rose looked at him—“you and Jenny fiddled with her TARDIS.”

He had a million questions, she could tell as easily as if it were her Doctor, well, the Doctor’s current body at least. Weren’t they all hers, after all? But the man before her admirably refrained.

“Was there any light, anything strange? A Time Storm, perhaps?”

Rose didn’t know what a Time Storm was, other than the obvious, and shook her head.

“You must drink.” Evil Priestess interrupted her chanting to command the Doctor. “Before it’s too late and you can no longer regenerate.”

“Oi!” Rose snapped. “Watch it lady. I’m havin’ a private conversation with m’ husband.”

The Doctor’s lips twitched again. Did they really have the time for her to snog him? Just once? His eyes darkened as if he heard her and Rose hastily rebuilt her mental walls. Oops. Not that she was sorry.

Not at all.

“And then you ended up here.” The Doctor stated. “You suddenly ended up here when two TARDIS’s materialized side-by-side. Now that, in itself, wouldn’t cause you to time-jump.”

“Not even the same TARDIS, more like mum and daughter. And it’s not the first time, all our children have their own TARDISes. TARDISii? I never did figure that one out.”

“All our children?” The Doctor looked intrigued again, and amused, but once more admirably refrained from questioning her further.

“But if someone messed with your timeline,” Rose said in understanding. “Used that point to do it, to yank you backward—”

“Then you were yanked here.” The Doctor nodded, grinning widely at her.

“We did not touch the Wolf,” Evil Priestess snapped. “She is the mother of all evil.”

“I am not,” Rose growled. She whirled to face Evil Priestess. “Bad Wolf is only for good.” She tilted her head. “Well, for stopping the end of the universe, actually.”

“Mother of all evil?” the Doctor repeated. “Don’t you mean the root? The saying—the very human saying I might add—is root of all evil. It’s biblical, actually: “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.” Though I don’t know why you’d care about money, Priestess, especially Earth money.”

Evil Priestess pressed her lips together and suddenly Rose understood. Fingers numb, heart racing, she slowly turned back to the Doctor.

“No,” Rose said slowly. “She meant mother. They don’t want me, no matter what they say about Bad Wolf.” She licked her lips but couldn’t feel them. “They want to alter your timeline so you don’t meet me. Or don’t marry me, I guess it doesn’t matter that part.”

“It’s our children.” His eyes widened in realization. “They want to stop our children.”

“Why?” Rose spat at Evil Priestess. “Why our children? What evil do you think they’ve done? Whatever it is, I don’t believe you.”

Of course Evil Priestess didn’t say anything. She snapped her fingers and several more women in long robes and wild hair appeared. Maybe Karn had high humidity? Didn’t feel like it, the damp cave seeped into her bones. The Doctor took her hand again—and hey, she could feel her fingers!—and tugged. 

“Time to go!”

He kicked the chalice of foul-smelling whatever at the women and pulled Rose toward the opposite wall and not-so-hidden door. The sister or priestess or whoever shouted at them to stop, called her fellow sisters to arm, but they ran faster than anyone else on Karn possibly could.

The passageway was dark and twisty, but Rose trusted the Doctor and let him lead her down the path. In the back of her mind she heard the TARDIS beckon them and ran faster.

“Hope this isn’t a dead end,” she gasped.

The Doctor snorted and ran faster. Rose wanted to laugh, running with her Doctor like always. But her family—the Doctor, her daughters…the family she and the Doctor created on Earth.

“Why?” Rose asked as they exited the caves and TARDIS came into view. “Why are they afraid of our children? It makes no sense. They should be more afraid of the Daleks and Total Universal Destruction (TM) than anything my family does.”

Then again, her family was pretty kick ass.

“They see in old bones and magic potions.” The Doctor shrugged. “Words and elixirs as magic.” He unlocked the door and pushed it open. Rose breathed a sigh of relief. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

“Yeah, yeah, Shakespeare lover that you are, it still makes no sense. Oh.” Rose stopped and looked around the TARDIS interior.

Plush, majestic and dark with wooden panels and a fireplace, a single reading chair sat off to the side. A more elegant setting for a Doctor who hadn’t yet experienced such destruction.

“Desktop change?” the Doctor asked with a grin. “I’ve grown rather attached to this one.”

“Yeah.” Rose swallowed hard, all humor gone.

It’d be destroyed. Lost to fire and death and the Moment. She reached out and touched the Time Rotor and wondered if the TARDIS knew how deeply She’d be affected. The slightly off hum in her mind told Rose She did know.

“Don’t tell me.” The harsh command startled Rose and she jerked back. “Not another word. It’s bad enough I know this much.”

“Believe me,” she said roughly, and had to clear her throat. “You don’t want to know.”

“Afraid I’ll run screaming?” His eyebrow rose again.

“Any sane person would.”

“Lucky for the universe,” the Doctor said with that patently false grin, “I’m not sane.”

She choked on a laugh. “That’s why I love you so much.”

The Doctor opened his mouth as if to speak, then abruptly snapped it closed. He whirled around the console, a graceful dance of barely controlled rage.

“I don’t understand,” Rose muttered, shifting out of his way. “What does the Sisterhood have against our family? Why invoke Bad Wolf in a patently false way?”

“You said Bad Wolf saved the universe?”

“Yes,” Rose only half lied. “But if Evil Priestess believes me to be the mother of all evil, then she believes our children are evil.” She met his gaze and refused to budge. “They’re not.”

He looked at her, such a strong, intense look she felt it right through her. “No,” he murmured. “I don’t think they are. They’re the balance in the universe.”


	4. Chapter 4

4.  
“Balance?” Rose repeated. The word triggered a long-ago memory, but she couldn’t grasp it. “Someone else said that once…who?”

“Does it matter?”

The Doctor stared at her, with that same hard, defeated look in his eyes. Without thinking, she crossed the console to him and took his hand. It was the only way Rose knew to comfort him, even if he didn’t yet know her.

It mattered, of course it did. That woman threatened her children. Her family. Her entire existence. It damn well did matter. Rose let it slide—for the moment. He cared, the Doctor always cared.

“The Sisterhood of Karn, why did they want to kill you?” Rose flinched at her poor choice of words, but she had nothing else. “Or forcefully regenerate?” She sighed—same thing.

He shrugged, a loose movement of his shoulders that didn’t fool her. “Ohila said—” he frowned then continued haltingly, “she said Cass almost certainly died, that no one could’ve survive that ship’s crash. But she didn’t know.” The Doctor met her gaze, and Rose saw his mind racing. The pieces to the puzzle he hadn’t wanted to put together before. “She—Ohilia not Cass—didn’t know, but still claimed I died as well.”

The Doctor sniffed and shook his head, once more prowling around the console. “My physiology is far superior to any other race’s.”

Rose tried not to laugh or roll her eyes. She’d heard that countless times in their years together. It was one of his sayings she hated their daughters picked up on.

“All right.” She wished he’d stop moving, he made her dizzy, but she felt the restless energy in him. “So they wanted you to forcibly regenerate, we’ve established that.” Rose nodded and stared at the Time Rotor.

She needed the toilet and wouldn’t mind a cup of tea. She hadn’t eaten lunch, either, and idly wondered if the TARDIS stocked real food now or those horrific wafers the Doctor had when she first traveled with him.

“Will you be…there won’t be any side effects from whatever that Sisterhood did to you?” Rose asked.

“I can already feel it wearing off,” he admitted. “Feel my body again. Not quite so numb.”

“What did Evil Priestess say, exactly?” Rose only heard the other woman’s voice repeating, ‘We did not touch the Wolf. She is the mother of all evil.’ “I only clearly remembering her threatening my family.”

“Tell me about Bad Wolf.” The Doctor stopped in front of her and leaned against the console, arms folded over his chest. “Ah. Thank you.”

Rose frowned, but realized almost instantly he didn’t thank her but the TARDIS. “Tea.” She closed her eyes and sighed gratefully at the TARDIS. “Ta, darling.”

The Doctor’s lips quirked. “Endearments, eh?” He sipped his tea and watched her carefully.

Grinning, purposely teasing the side of her mouth with her tongue in a move she knew captured both her Doctors’ attentions, Rose primly sipped her tea. “I was speaking to the TARDIS.”

He threw back his head and laughed. The sound moved through her, a warmth of love and affection and her willingness to fight for every second with this man she loved. Rose hastily sipped against a dry mouth and wondered what her life would’ve been like if she met this man first.

The warrior, not the survivor.

Warrior.

Rose set the tea cup—her favorite, the one from when she first started traveling with the Doctor she didn’t even know how many years in this man’s future—on the tea tray.

“Warrior—they wanted to regenerate you into a warrior.”

“No, my dear.” The Doctor stared into his own teacup as if reading the tea leaves. Or maybe timelines. “I wanted them to regenerate me into a warrior.”

“Why?”

“It’s what the universe needs.”

“No.” She jabbed him in the chest with her finger. Being inside the TARDIS helped dampen the effects of being out of time and her head didn’t pound. But her heart did. “Don’t even think that. What made you think it in the first damn place? The universe doesn’t need a warrior. It’s always needed the Doctor.”

He met her gaze. For one frantic moment, Rose thought he’d given up all hope. “You’re right.” Just like that, he began to heal. Maybe not heal, but his resolve hardened. Strengthened. “The Doctor brings hope, or I’ve tried to. Haven’t much succeeded lately.”

“I’m sure you have,” Rose countered. “Throughout the universe, the Doctor’s name means hope, good, courage, optimism. Faith.”

The Doctor snorted but looked less wound tight, less tense. “All right. Now tell me about Bad Wolf.”

“I—” Rose faltered— “not sure how much to say without mucking up timelines. Met the Reapers once, ta. Don’t want to ever again.”

He looked intrigued at that, but nodded. “How about I tell you about our children?”

Her back stiffened and a chill raced up her spine. “What about them?”

“My theory is that the Sisterhood fears the Wolf Children because they’re half-Time Lord, half-Human.” He held her gaze with a steadiness that Rose knew meant he looked into her soul. She normally didn’t mind, but she had so many secrets from this Doctor.

“I know there were others,” she countered. “Leela for one.”

“Ah, but she wasn’t a typical Human. Not Earth Human for sure.” The Doctor shook his head. “No, your children—our children are different. They’re children of time.”

“Fuck.” Once more numb, Rose stared at him as that long-ago day on the Dalek Crucible rushed back to her.

Years, decades, had passed since that day. Adventures and love, arguments and laughing as they ran for their lives. Danger and passion. As if it happened yesterday, Rose heard Dalek Caan’s reedy voice clearly—it crawled over her skin and clenched around her heart.

‘The Wolf Cub has seen what happens. The Cub of the Wolf Storm has seen what I’ve seen and will see and have seen.’

“Who is the Wolf Cub?”

Rose blinked up at him. The Doctor held tight to her arms, bracing her. Worried, scared, he gently guided her to a chair Rose hadn’t noticed before. She sank into the plush leather, not entirely certain her legs could hold her any longer.

“Sit, my wife.” His lips quirked again, and Rose steadied herself against the overwhelming need to kiss him. “That’s it, would you like more tea?”

“Maybe a glass of wine,” she said weakly. But she shook her head and breathed deeply, focusing on the here and now.

The Doctor had said he saw Davros fly into the jaws of the Nightmare Child in the first year of the war. That meant Caan had already Time Shifted. Rose swallowed and fought with herself not to change one second of time.

“The Wolf Cub, she’s important. They all are. You, as mother of these cubs, our children, have started them on a path I, or future me, couldn’t.”

“A—um, someone once said to me: ‘The path does not end. The fire twists throughout time and space. The Bad Wolf.’” Rose swallowed and willed the words of the second Dalek she saw change into the recesses of her mind once more.

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed as if he knew who that someone was, or suspected the species at least. Rose didn’t even have the wherewithal to hide it from him.

“Path, eh? I supposed there’s always more than one path.” He straightened, and Rose knew he’d made his choice. The one he always had, always would.

The Doctor looked into the distance for a while, Rose had no idea how long, but it stretched out before her. Forever—a heartbeat—eternity—a blink of an eye. Finally, he looked to her again.

“Robert Frost wrote, ‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.’ I suppose—” he breathed deeply and nodded— “I suppose I know my path.”

“Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, ‘Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.’ You forge your own path, Doctor.” Rose leaned up and hugged him, holding him close, keeping him tight to her. “You always have. Always will. We walk the path together now; our children follow in our footsteps.”

“You’re good for me, wife.” He kissed her, a long, deep kiss that tasted of time and desperation, love and hope. Despair and promise. “Now.” The Doctor released her and stepped back for the console. “We all have our lives to lead. Or, well, in my case end.” He shook his head. “Still, nice to know there’s a future.”

She tilted her head but only nodded. Rose wanted to stay longer, wanted to know the man who became her Doctor. Wanted to offer him a modicum of comfort in this time…before.

“And where may I drop you off, my wife?” he asked, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

Their time was up, ended before it started. She supposed that was for the best. He wasn’t her Doctor—not yet. But she loved him anyway.

“Laracopa, 43rd Epoch of the Chrysanthemum Dynasty, the 72nd Day of the Parades.”

He watched her closely as he set the coordinates. Then, so quietly she barely heard him, “What’s your name?”

“I can’t—” her voice cracked, and she took a hasty breath. “You know I can’t.”

Softly, sincerely, with a hidden desperation she clearly heard he said, “Thank you…my wife.”

Rose’s breath hitched, and she swallowed tears. “It’s all right now or will be. You didn’t regenerate, so the timelines should stay intact. Whatever.” She shook her head and sniffed back the sorrow choking her. “The Sisterhood of Karn, whatever their reason for wanting you to change and our timelines to end, why ever they targeted our family with their hatred of us, it didn’t work.”

“Still doesn’t explain how you were transported here,” the Doctor said as he set the coordinates.

“Oh.” She looked up at the Time Rotor. “I think it does.”

He followed her gaze, then looked to her again, eyes sharp. “The TARDIS does not work like that,” he said firmly.

Rose grinned again. “She and I have a very special relationship.” She shrugged and wondered if that was the truth. It felt right—Bad Wolf pulled her to Karn to stop the Sisterhood’s meddling in the timelines.

Sounded like something she’d have made sure to prevent when she wielded the power of the Time Vortex. If she truly had seen everything, and Rose believed she had, then of course Bad Wolf put preventive measures in place to ensure the timeline.

Her being here always happened and always would happen.

Though quite how Bad Wolf managed that, Rose had no idea. Then again, there were many things about Bad Wolf she didn’t understand.

“Thank you.” He stepped close and kissed her softly, a light caress of his lips. “I look forward to meeting you.”

“I can’t wait,” Rose agreed.

Then she smiled and kissed him again. His hands settled on her hips and he pulled her closer. Rose wound her arms around his neck and pressed against him.

The fingers of one hand trialed up her spine, tangled in her hair. The Doctor angled his head, and groaned into the kiss. Rose never wanted this to end. Knew it had to. Reluctantly pulling back, she met his gaze and licked her lips.

“I’ll see you soon, my Doctor.” Rose kissed him again—for the men he had been, for the man he was now and the future he embraced even knowing what would happen, and the man she fell in love with. “I’ll see you soon.”

His eyes were bright with emotion and the faintest sheen of tears.

Spinning, she blinked back her own tears and rushed out the doors into the warm sunshine of…not Laracopa.

“Bollocks.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor's about to end the Time War...

5.  
The Doctor leaned against the TARDIS console, palms digging into the edges. Exhaustion tugged his limbs, his hearts. Even his respiratory bypass was tired. He wanted to sleep for a thousand days—when was the last time he slept? The Doctor couldn’t remember.

It didn’t matter.

No one had a thousand days. Certainly not the universe.

The TARDIS’s mournful wail echoed in his mind, burning him from the inside out. He tried to comfort Her—She’d seen so many of Her Sisters perish in this War—but hadn’t the strength. He barely had the strength to finish this day out.

“I’m sorry, old girl. It’s time.”

He looked up at the Time Rotor, purposefully ignoring the innocuous box sitting on the floor as if it were only another memento from his travels. The TARDIS hated it in here, and the Doctor didn’t blame Her. He didn’t want it anywhere near him, either.

The Doctor snorted. “Damn you, Romana. Damn you.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “And damn me, too.”

“Doctor.” Romana’s voice echoed sharply around the console as if she heard him.

Well, the TARDIS liked Romana, so who the hell knew. Maybe she had. Given the oddities even for Time, maybe Romana transmatted from the Citadel to his TARDIS just to push him to finish this and the TARDIS let her.

The Doctor had seen stranger things in this War. In life.

He looked to the monitor and didn’t bother hiding the desolation in his gaze. Romana’s mirrored the same hopelessness. He wanted to reach out to his old friend, but they each had their own jobs to do.

“I have only a moment.”

“No pun intended, I presume.”

Her lips pursed in a look she managed to keep through regenerations. He tried to embrace that, let it comfort him, but it beat hollowly in his chest.

“Call to assure yourself my commitment stands?” His laugh sounded as hollow as the comfort of familiarity. “I can assure you, Romana—”

“No.” She cut him off, and even though the static of their connection, the uneven waves of Dalek interference cutting though her face, the Doctor saw her roll her eyes. Another mannerism she kept through regenerations. He almost smiled.

“I contacted you to say goodbye.”

All the air left the TARDIS as if sucked into the Void.

“Goodbye, old friend.” Her voice broke—or maybe it was the bad connection. The Doctor liked to think it was the former, but suspected Romana would insist on the later. “It’s been—I am a better person for having traveled with you.”

“Romana.” The Doctor’s voice did break, and he didn’t care if she knew it. “They don’t suspect you?”

The truly condescending look made him laugh. Romana smiled, a sereneness on her face he envied. “Does it matter? What can they possibly do to me, Doctor?”

“I—you could come with me.”

“My fate lies upon a different path and you know it.”

He sniffed and forced a light laugh for his friend. “I’m sure by now you realize I’m not one to take the path I’m supposed to.”

“Yes, yes, the road less traveled, you.”

“Actually, I was thinking of another Earth poet. He said: _‘Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.’”_

“Yes, I can see that.” Romana nodded, unfazed by the explosion behind her. Whatever room she locked herself in, seemed the Time Lords had breached.

“Until we meet again, Romanadvoratrelundar.”

“See you on the other side.” She grinned, eye sparkling—with regrets, humor, understanding, and yes tears—and the connection died.

“All my love to the past,” he murmured in the deafening silence of his TARDIS. The Doctor stood like that for only a moment—an eon, eternity, he couldn’t tell in the Time Lock any more. The TARDIS continued to wail, that stupid box continued to mock him.

“I know.” The Doctor spoke to both the TARDIS and that box. “Legend has it you’re the final work of the Other.” He snorted and ran a hand down his face. He just wanted to rest, but there was no rest for the wicked.

The Doctor looked deep into himself but when he spoke, he didn’t hear the words he said. They felt right, but made no sense, even to him. “Of all my work, think I’d have done more good and less, well, galaxy eater.”

The TARDIS agreed, but the Doctor shook himself and wondered what She agreed to. Or with.

“I guess this is it then,” he said to his beloved ship. “Time’s up.” Neither of them laughed at his truly awful joke. “All right, old girl. Take us there.”

They landed gently, quietly, though the Doctor had no idea why. What difference did sound make in the middle of the War? And it wasn’t like anyone lived in the wastelands. Not in—well, however long it’d been since everyone either died or escaped to the Citadel. What use was Time in a Time Locked Time War?

Not that they were safer there, with Rassilon’s idiocy.

The Doctor opened the door, but they hadn’t landed in the shack. “What’s wrong with the shack?” he asked the TARDIS who refused to offer an answer. “Fine, be like that. I suppose a walk will do me good. Nice stretch of the legs, eh?”

He paused and rested his hand on the Time Rotor in farewell. The Doctor didn’t know what to say to his oldest and dearest friend, how to say goodbye to Her. The Rotor pulsed once, a long, slow movement and he thought maybe She said goodbye to him, too.

Dropping his hand, he turned from tearful goodbyes and useless tears, and hefted the box. It wasn’t heavy, which belied the destruction sitting inside it. Once the Doctor stepped outside, the TARDIS doors closed. 

“Don’t blame you, old girl.” He looked over his shoulder at the closed doors and felt something in his hearts break. “I don’t want to witness this, either. But it’d be nice to have a friend there.”

He traversed the distance in silence, mind reaching for anything not his present course. A memory of Susan—no, best no think on her, she was happy, living her life with her husband and family. Best not think what effect his actions were about to have on his granddaughter.

If he absolutely had to be honest with himself, he supposed he should just acknowledge that, as always, the Doctor thought of his wife. He thought of her so often, since meeting her on Karn. Had even told Romana about her, though his friend had laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Guess I’ll never discover your name now, eh?” He closed his eyes against the brilliance of the suns and kept walking and talking. “Guess we’ll never meet now. So long, I held onto the hope that once this War was over we’d finally—”

He came to the shack and kicked open the door with far more force than the ajar barrier required. As Romana promised, other than a few crates the place was deserted. The Doctor hadn’t asked why she suggested here, other than its distant location from the Citadel. He supposed it didn’t matter.

Running a hand through his shorn curls, the Doctor took a moment—pun fully intended—and remembered his wife’s smile. The way her body pressed against his, the desperate passion in her kiss. What would it have been like, traveling with her?

He barely remembered Lucy or C’rizz or Charley’s face, no matter how he tried to burn them into his brain. Or Ace—well, he supposed she was better off without him. But his wife, despite their short adventure through the caves of Karn and the mystery surrounding her appearance, her blonde hair, sparkling golden eyes, and wide smile burned into his memory.

Odd, considering the problems he had with memory in this regeneration.

Shaking himself, memory did no good in his present situation and only made his hearts yearn for what might’ve been. Or might be. Or had been. Because the simple fact remained that the Doctor didn’t know what ending the Time War would do. Had he done this before? Had he always ended the War and ended it in this way?

In doing this, in stopping both Time Lords and Daleks, did he reset time? Had he ruined any chance of meeting the beautiful woman with the sparkling eyes filled with such love for him? Even if he did, even if, by some miracle, he survived this—which he fully expected not to do—how could she possibly love a creature such as he?

A murderer.

The Doctor crouched before the box, not entirely sure how it worked. He poked a long finger at it, but nothing. The silence hummed along his nerves, echoed in the beats of his hearts, and thrummed just out of his telepathic reach.

“Don’t suppose you have a big red button, eh? Wouldn’t want to work too hard to destroy everything, now would I?”

The rustle of clothing stopped his hearts. He whirled, sonic out, scanning for one of Rassilon’s goons sent to stop him. Or the mad man himself—Rassilon had truly gone off the deep end, ready to let the entire universe burn.

“Who’s there?”

“Just me.” The woman who looked remarkably like his wife, popped up next to him. “Are you afraid of wolves, Doctor?”


	6. Chapter 6

6.  
“You!”

The creature who looked like his wife waved at him, an amused wiggle of her fingers. She grinned and looked so much like the woman the Doctor remembered, his hearts skipped. Fury burned the shock from his system and he stalked forward.

“Who are you? Why have you chosen this form?” Uncaring of the destructive box behind him, the Doctor whipped out his sonic and pointed it at the creature. Voice lowering, feeling every inch the Oncoming Storm Romana called him, the Doctor threatened the woman. “You chose the wrong form. You’ll regret that.”

The creature grinned wider. “Do you know why the TARDIS doesn’t want to be in this room?”

“Leave my ship out of this.” The Doctor stalked closer. “And tell me who you are.”

“Oh, Doctor.” She shook her head, looking faux pouty which was a look he easily saw on his wife and hated this—this thing took her image. “You must remember you gave the Moment a conscience.”

Her words took him aback and the Doctor dropped the arm holding the sonic. “What? I didn’t—the Moment was created eons ago, before Rassilon came to power.”

“Hello!” She waved again. “No, Doctor. The Moment was created by the Other.” She leaned forward and studied him, tilting her head left then right, eyes flashing gold like the Time Vortex. “Ah, well. Maybe one day you’ll remember. No matter! No—no, that wasn’t it. _No more._ Yes, no more. That’s what you told Romana. That’s what you told the Time Lords. That’s what you told the Daleks. And only Romana and the TARDIS listened.”

“You’re not making any sense.” The Doctor ran a hand down his face, wearier now than he had been when Romana helped him steal the Moment.

His old friend could’ve warned him that in doing so he’d go mad. Then again, he always said he’d never been sane. The Doctor opened his eyes and met the glowing gold of the creature who was most certainly not his wife. How did he tell the difference any more between sanity and madness?

Did it matter?

“You know,” the Moment whispered as coyly as the Doctor imagined his wife doing so in their bed. White-hot fury blinded him at the seductive curve of her lips. It should’ve been his _wife_ looking at him like that, not a destructive beast. “I chose this face and form especially for you.”

“ _Pick-someone-else_ ,” he snarled. The Doctor wanted to take the Moment by the throat and strangle her—it. He’d tolerate any other face but the one who gave him such hope.

She-it pouted. “But it’s from your past.” She frowned. “Or possibly your future. I always get those two mixed up.”

He scoffed and turned from the creature—the Moment—but she popped up in front of him. Defeated, the Doctor sat on one of the crates beside the box and stared at his hands. His last hope, his reason for hoping, mocked him.

This was his curse then. The last good thing in his life ripped from him and destroyed by his own hubris. He thought he could end the war, that he was the only one who could. He chose the Moment specifically for its power, thinking he could control that power.

Who was the fool here?

“I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong, my dear.” The words tasted like ash, but he so desperately wanted to see his wife in front of him. Just one more time after so many eons of fighting. “I don’t have a future.” He sniffed and looked up, watching the image watch him with such profound sympathy his hearts twisted.

Even from her-it-whatever, the Doctor didn’t deserve her sympathy. He stood and offered a grin that showed all the reckless pride he possessed. It didn’t seem to fool the Moment. “What should I call you? What’s—no. Don’t.” He swallowed thickly. “Don’t tell me her name.”

Every part of him yearned to know his wife’s name, taste it on his tongue, whisper it into her ear. Repeat it over and over as he kissed along her skin. Without her here, with only the memory of their single meeting, or their all-too-brief kisses, the Doctor didn’t want to know. And it certainly wasn’t this creature’s place to tell him.

“Hmm, in this form I’m called Bad Wolf.” The Doctor’s head jerked up and he met the gold of her gaze. She grinned, as feral as he remembered his wife grinning at the Priestess of Karn. “Are you afraid of the big bad wolf, Doctor?”

“No.” He stood and crossed to her, questions burning the tip of his tongue. “I’m not. Why that form? What—on Karn, she said she was the wolf. The she-wolf protecting her pack. The mother wolf.” Frustrated, the Doctor pressed the heel of his palm to his temple. “Bad Wolf, Bad Wolf…what does that have to do with me? With here?” He met the Moment’s gaze. “What does it have to do with you?”

“This is the form you can most identify with.” She frowned. “Or will.” She grinned, a beautiful smile that wanted desperately to ease the ache in his hearts, but that smile wasn’t from her. “Once Upon a Time…isn’t that how the stories start?”

“You know an awful lot of Earth lore for a purely Gallifreyan construct.” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared. Anger and hate burned within him, fragile barriers against the desolation consuming him from the inside out.

“Ah, but Bad Wolf was only the beginning, not the end. She created herself, as she likes to say.” The Moment winked at him, but the Doctor only felt the cold hand of dread. “ _I take the words, I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here._ ”

“Here?” Furious, the Doctor stalked to the Moment and grabbed her. His hands slipped through her shoulders, but she didn’t vanish. The Doctor curled his hands into fists, scrambling to hold onto his temper. “Don’t you _dare_ bring her here! Keep her away from this! She’s innocent, she’s human, she has _nothing,_ to do with this war!”

Once again, the Moment watched him with pitying sympathy. “Oh, Doctor. You have no idea, do you? No idea the lengths your friends, your family, those you love and those who love you, will go to for you.” She shook her head. “Do you?”

“I don’t deserve that.” He leaned against the crates and looked at his hands. “I never deserved them. Brought nothing but pain and destruction on everyone I ever knew. And now—” The Doctor broke off and looked up from the blood on his hands, metaphorical or not, to the Moment.

His chest ached, and he thought if fate or the universe or whoever was left that listened to the wishes, hopes, prayers of an old Time Lord listened now, that’s what he wished for. One final moment with the woman he loved—or would grow to love enough to marry. He remembered, with startlingly clarity, the way her fingers brushed the pendant beneath her jumper during their one meeting on Karn.

A Gallifreyan marriage pendant. He didn’t have to see to know she wore it.

“Every moment in time and space is burning. It must end.” He met the Moment’s steady golden gaze. “I’ll end it the only way I can.” He sighed and pushed upright, shoving his personal hopes and wishes far into the recesses of his mind.

He was about to commit genocide on two species. He deserved no absolution.

“And you’re going to use me to end it by killing them all, Daleks and Time Lords alike. I could, but there will be consequences for you.”

“There always are.” The Doctor held her-its gaze. “I accept my fate. I understand my actions. There’s no other choice. The fighting, the death, the constant changing of time, the resurrections and death and nightmares that come from it—it must end.”

The Doctor closed his eyes and envisioned his wife—not as the Moment stood before him, dressed in tan rags for reasons he didn’t understand and couldn’t be bothered to ask. He envisioned her on Karn, the fire and energy burning through her, the determination. As he had so often since then, he remembered the feel of her lips against his, the softness of her hands, the press of her body to his.

“In killing them all—” his voice broke but he stood straight and tall and accepting of his actions, and met the Moment’s hard gaze— “I accept my fate. I won’t survive, either.” He swallowed. “I’ll change my own fate, my own destiny. I’ll never met her, will I? I’ll never meet the woman whose form you stole. _My wife_.”

The Moment paused, eyes glowing, head tilted as the Doctor imagined his wife tilted hers.

“Just—tell me this one thing,” he begged. His throat closed but he needed to know. Had to ask. “Is she—will she be all right? Will she be…happy? I just want—”

The Doctor needed her to be happy. Changing time like this, dying in the midst of the Time War, and never seeing her again hurt more than any single event in all his previous lives combined. Except for leaving Susan on Earth.

“I can see the whole of time and space. Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies.”

Stunned, frozen in place, the Doctor stared at the Moment as she seemed to recite words he heard before. Or maybe not yet.

Then she grinned. “Never say never, Doctor.”


	7. Chapter 7

7.  
Rose sighed and pushed up the sleeves of her jumper. Thin or not, it was too hot in the blazing twin suns of the desert. 

Behind her, the TARDIS stood, looking as tired as Rose had ever seen Her. She hummed a telepathic greeting, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge Rose. Blinded by the blowing wind and blazing sun, Rose turned from the TARDIS and trudged toward the only structure in sight; a dilapidated wood shack in the middle of nowhere.

“Of course,” she grumbled. “Because why wouldn’t there be a dilapidated wood shack in the middle of the desert?”

The Doctor she bonded with once more screamed for her, the dampening field around the TARDIS gone now that Rose stood outside the ship. Now a dozen other voices joined in—her children, she instantly recognized, but Rose suspected the other voices were all the Doctor. Her head pounded and all she wanted was a drink and to hold her family again.

And possibly all the painkillers in the universe.

Definitely a hat to shield her eyes from the sun, this was worse than that desert planet with those Mynock things…no that was from Star Wars, wasn’t it. Well, whatever the planet eating vortex creating things were on San Helios.

She didn’t know if her family was safe after her unexpected visit to Karn. She felt them, their various bonds, and hoped so—please let them be. If she still felt their bonds, even if she currently couldn’t separate individual threads due to the incredible pain, that had to mean they still lived.

Unless it was part of a Time Ripple. But hadn’t they stopped those? She rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes. What a mess. While Rose firmly believed Bad Wolf had a part in—possibly total control over—her appearance in that cave, it still made no sense.

Why did the Sisterhood want to change the Doctor’s future? Why wipe out their children? What did their children do that scared the Sisterhood so badly they went to such trouble to erase them from the universe?

Power, of course, but what power did they want in the universe? Power over the Doctor—why? 

Why change the Doctor’s timeline and not Rose’s instead? There were any number of ways the Sisterhood could’ve done so. Unless they hadn’t the means to leave Karn or punch through the Time Lock. If that were the case, they’d have to ensure the Doctor arrived—or crashed—onto Karn so they could manipulate him.

But _why_?

And why that time? Was there a reason it was that particular Doctor and not another one—say the Doctor she met? There were a hundred ways they could’ve changed both Rose’s and the Doctor’s future; including stopping her first jump from the other universe to here, somehow changing their lives from that point onward.

Unless they didn’t have the power to stop her. Rose had jumped from the other dimension into this one right as Dalek Caan Time Shifted from 1930 New York into the Time Lock. She and the Doctor suspected her timing hadn’t been a coincidence, especially with Jack finding the TARDIS from halfway across the city that night, too.

Had Caan been responsible for her being here? Cold in the scorching heat, Rose stopped her trek and shook her head. Pressing her fingers to her temples, she tried to make sense of it. In all the time since that day on the Crucible, they’d never found answers—those died with Dalek Caan.

Except maybe they didn’t.

Ah, life of a time traveler.

She focused and tried to isolate her Doctor’s signature. Tried to reassure him as much as she tried to reassure herself that nothing changed; the Sisterhood of Karn hadn’t altered the timeline and her family was as she left them. 

Why would the Sisterhood want a warrior, not the Doctor? Why foist a false regeneration? He already fought, the entire plan made no sense. The name ‘the Doctor’ was synonymous with healing, helping, caring the universe over.

On not one planet, _not one_ , was ‘the Doctor’ associated with warriors, soldiers, fighters.

Still, the Doctor survived, he left Karn intact and un-regenerated. The Sisterhood, whatever their reasons, had not succeeded. Rose clung to that and to her Doctor’s voice in her head. It had to be enough. It had to be. 

Rose walked forward and again tried to separate out her Doctor’s voice and reassure him she was alive, if still in parts unknown. She knew his mental signature so well, better than her own, but there seemed to be more than one Doctor Mental Signature.

His voice merged with another—or was that his? She couldn’t tell, her head pounded, and Rose couldn’t concentrate enough to do more than strengthen her walls and block everything out.

Being the Doctor, that didn’t work. Their minds were too closely entwined, but it lessened the screaming in her head.

Now, standing before the shack’s door, Rose debated. It was hot, and the suns beat unrelentingly on the desert. She was thirsty and tired and suddenly wished she packed a snack in her TARDIS-altered bigger-on-the-inside pockets. But she stopped doing that after their youngest went off in her own TARDIS, leaving she and the Doctor on their own once again.

Let that be a lesson.

Well, what other choice had she? Stay out here and fry or walk inside and face the unknown. Never one to shy away from the unknown, Rose pushed open the door.

The Doctor—shorn curls, battered jacket, dirty neck scarf, lovely scruff Rose wanted to feel against her bare—skin stood in the center of a room that looked like a cross between storage and just plain forgotten. Abandoned.

Why the hell had he left his TARDIS so far away and walked to this place?

“Well,” the Doctor said, false optimism and clear surprise in his voice. His eyes darted from her to a spot just to her right, then back again. “If it isn’t my wife.”

“Oh, Doctor,” Rose whispered and crossed the room.

She didn’t care how bitter he sounded and certainly didn’t care he stiffened in her embrace. Rose hugged him, breathing in his familiar scent and kissed that spot just behind his ear. The Doctor shuddered at the skin-on-skin contact, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight to him.

“Hello,” he breathed along her skin.

“Got a drink in those pockets?” She pulled back just enough to look him in the eye. She brushed her fingertips across the curls falling over his forehead.

That sexy eyebrow glided upward, and he nodded. Reaching into his leather jacket, he pulled out a still-cold automatic-filter refillable bottle of water she knew all too well, and handed it to her.

Rose took it gratefully and drank deeply. “Wouldn’t happen to have a t-shirt in there, too?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said regretfully and brushed his fingers down her neck. She shivered at the cool touch and let his telepathy once more wrap around her, easing her pounding head. “I didn’t exactly pack for you.”

“No.” Rose sighed and handed the bottle back to him. “I suppose not. Where are we?” 

“Gallifrey.”

Stunned, Rose blinked stupidly at him then her eyes widened, and she deliberately looked around. “I thought it’d be…bigger,” she admitted. “All soaring towers and glass cities.”

He snorted. “That’s the Citadel; we’re in the wastelands around the capitol, Outer Gallifrey.” Quietly he added, “I’m not sure the Citadel still stands.”

“Oh.” Her heart thudded in her chest and dread settled like lead in her stomach. “ _When_ are we?”

He met her gaze, the hard, broken look of a man without hope. “I think you know.”

Slowly she nodded. Of course she knew. Anything she wanted to say disappeared, as dry as the desert outside.

“How did you get here?” the Doctor asked, once more curious.

He stepped back and looked at her with a critical eye. His gaze flicked to her right again, but immediately returned to hers. Rose wanted to look, see what he saw, but knew (or thought) no one else occupied this room.

“It either hasn’t been that long for you,” he added, “or you have a penchant for pink jumpers and black trousers.”

Rose snorted. She let him have his space, even if she wanted his arms around her. For his comfort as much as hers. Did he want her comfort? Rose didn’t know, but thought—maybe.

“I stepped out of your TARDIS and into this desert. Not sure how that happened. Then again.” She sighed and jumped up onto one of the wooden crates. “I’m still not sure how I ended up on Karn.”

He looked at her sharply. “But you have an idea.” It wasn’t a question.

“You know I can’t tell you.” She suddenly grinned, tongue teasing the corner of her mouth. “Yet.”

Eyes riveted to her tongue, as Rose intended, the Doctor nodded. All of a sudden, the sound of a materializing TARDIS echoed throughout the shack.

The Doctor moved faster than Rose realized and grabbed her hand, tugging her behind him. She stumbled off the crate at the suddenness of the move and banged her shin on the box by his feet, but remained upright. Really, after how many decades of running with the Doctor she thought she’d be better at it.

“Romana assured me the planet remained sealed,” the Doctor spat. “Damn Rassilon!”

His curse wasn’t only that, but quite clearly directed _at_ Rassilon. The resurrected founder of the Time Lords must’ve already put his plan into action. Wonderful.

But Rose knew that sound. Granted, she never heard another TARDIS beside theirs, and their children’s, but she knew the sound of _her_ TARDIS. This was no random TARDIS. It was her Doctor’s.

Doctors’.

Five police public call box TARDIS’s materialized in the shack.

“I didn’t think this place was bigger on the inside,” she muttered.

The Doctor beside her snorted but remained alert. He pulled his sonic from an inner jacket pocket and aimed it straight ahead. Rose felt the suddenly heavy weight of her own sonic in her trouser pocket.

Tension literally vibrated through him. Leaving her sonic, Rose brushed her fingers over the nape of his neck. She hadn’t enough strength to break through the screams in her mind, but she knew touching the Doctor’s skin would calm them both.

It seemed to, but the Doctor remained on high alert. Rose wondered if he had always been like that, so hard and alert, or if the Time War alone changed him. Hardened him.

And then the TARDIS’s doors opened.

And Rose’s headache worsened.

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, which did absolutely nothing to alleviate the pain. This was worse than wibbly wobbly. This was a nightmare.

Her first Doctor stood by his TARDIS, arms crossed over his leather-clad chest. A much younger her in a—oh, for the love of the universe—it was her in that Union Jack t-shirt. She knew that t-shirt; she’d never forget that t-shirt if she lived until the end of the universe. Rose knew when the pair of them came from.

Just before the Blitz, before ‘Are you my Mummy?’ and meeting Jack. Before they rescued Winston from that alley.

Younger Rose gaped at her. “What in the world is going on?”

“Previous me.” Her first Doctor gestured to the man Rose met in Karn. “Older me and older me.” He gestured to her Doctor then to an older regeneration who stood with Jenny. “And weird clone mes.” He shrugged at her Doctor-with-floppy-hair and the older regeneration not with Jenny but with Clara. “Just another day in the life.”


	8. Chapter 8

8.  
“What do you mean, previous you and older you?” Younger Rose narrowed her eyes. “What are you on about?”

Rose suddenly remembered she hadn’t known about regeneration then. Oops. “It’s a little wibbly wobbly, timey wimey,” she told her younger self and smiled gently at her. “You’ll have to forget this after, but yeah. They’re all the Doctor.”

“Yeah?” Younger Rose narrowed her eyes as if weighing whether or not to believe an older looking her. Or if that was an older looking her, Rose supposed.

“Oh, yes.” Rose held her younger gaze and nodded decisively.

She didn’t have to remember what went through her mind here, not that she did. Rose wondered if she ever would. But no, Younger Rose thought the same things she did—of course she was going to stay with the Doctor. No doubt in that.

And of course she’d protect him with her life if need be. She’d proven that, had done so and would do so again.

Younger Rose snorted and looked up at (her) Doctor with a smug, knowing grin. That Doctor eyed his Rose from the corner of his eye then very purposefully scowled. Rose knew he remembered exactly when this meeting took place. It hurt her that he had to relive it.

It hurt that they all had to, and Rose wondered why Bad Wolf brought them all together. What purpose did it serve?

Next TARDIS was theirs. Her Doctor, well, okay, the one she physically married, stood in the doorway, looking very relieved to see her. Rose made to push past the Doctor still protecting her. He refused to budge, catching her arm and continuing to aim his sonic at the various TARDIS’s and Doctors.

She grinned widely at her Doctor (and she thought she had a headache before) and waved. His relief was so palpable, she swore each of the Doctors felt it. Rose wondered where Jenny and Clara were—she very much doubted her daughter, any of her daughers, would let the Doctor out on his own when she was missing. 

Third in line was her Doctor, also in brown pinstripes, also alone, but with truly terrible hair. He gaped at her as if he hadn’t seen her in decades. Rose waved to him, too, but that small greeting hit him like a slap and he looked as if he was about to cry.

She frowned and tried not to read too much into any of that. Her head already pounded, and Rose honestly did not want to know why she was not beside him. And why his hair was an awful mess of flatness.

Fourth stood Clara and an older Doctor. Rose had never met the tall, gangly Doctor in tweed and bow tie, but she knew he was older and far more broken than even her first Doctor. Or the one standing next to her. He, too, gaped at her as if seeing a ghost.

Finally, stood the same Doctor clad in the same tweed and bow tie, but with Jenny.

“Is the universe about to implode?” Rose asked into the awkward silence of the crowded shack.

Her Doctor—no, she needed a better way to separate them. Her current Doctor? Her current Doctor who remembered marrying her?

Bit of a mouthful.

_Her_ Doctor pushed past the Doctor protecting her with a grunt and a sniff, and hugged her tight. “Rose,” he breathed and brushed his fingertips over her temples.

She sighed in relief at his mental touch. The pounding that threatened to break her brain receded as his telepathy enveloped her in a warm blue-silver wave of love and protection.

“Rose,” Doctor-protecting-her (Youngest Doctor?) said. “Beautiful name, oh wife of mine.”

She turned slightly to grin at him, tongue deliberately teasing the corner of her lips. Gratified when his gaze locked in on her mouth, Rose almost missed the sad whispers of the two Doctors who didn’t travel with her or Jenny and looked the most surprised to see her.

“What happened?” her Doctor demanded. “Where did you go?”

“I don’t know,” Rose admitted. She looked up at him, returning to the matter at hand. “One minute I was on that bench by the fountain with Clara,” she said.

Clara—clearly not Jenny’s Clara—squeaked in shock. Jenny stared sadly at the woman, who obviously had no idea who Jenny was. Rose’s heart broke for her daughter. She also noted how the two Doctors most surprised to see her (Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor and Older-Doctor-with-Clara) stared at Jenny with equal longing.

Rose wondered what the Doctor-Protecting-Her (Youngest Doctor? She still didn’t know what to call him.) thought of Jenny. He had to feel her mental signature.

“The next I was in a cave on Karn.”

Rose didn’t need to see the other Doctors to know their reaction. Even Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor who clearly wasn’t her husband gaped. She felt all their pain as if it were her own. It did not help her poor head.

“What,” her Doctor said in that dangerous voice that terrified Daleks, “were you doing on _Karn_?”

The question was not directed at her but at Doctor-Protecting-Her.

“I’m sure you remember what _I_ was doing on Karn.” That Doctor sounded blasé.

Rose rubbed her eyes and tried to keep the Doctors straight. If they all looked different, then maybe, but with two sets of twins, it made for…well, she already had a headache. Universe ending migraine?

Probably best not to joke about that.

“Of course we remember what I was doing on Karn,” the Older-Doctor-with-Clara snapped. “We regenerated.”

Her first Doctor—did the Doctor from Karn count as her third Doctor chronologically or as her ‘real’ first Doctor since he was, in fact, the youngest?

Her first Doctor scowled deeper and stepped forward. “I remember Karn,” he admitted, voice harsh and bleak. “I don’t remember regenerating.” He stopped and looked softly at Rose, then to his Rose. “I do, however, now remember you suddenly being there.”

Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor shook his head, gaze so steady on Rose it sent shivers down her spine. That Doctor’s eyes flicked from her face to her hand, clasped firmly in her Doctor’s, and the ring gracing her finger.

“What are you doing here?” The words were so quietly spoken yet they shot through the small shack like a bullet. “How can you be here?”

Rose raised her eyebrow. “There’s another you, two identical older yous, plus two younger yous, and a younger me, and that’s what you ask?”

But the heartbreak in his eyes undid her. Rose stepped from her Doctor’s side and, light as butterfly wings, ran her fingertips over that Doctor’s cheek. He caught her hand and leaned into her touch, sighing softly.

“Where did you expect me to be?”

He opened his mouth then clicked it shut. Shaking his head, he looked to the Older-Doctor-with-Clara who looked equally heartbroken. Both Doctors shook their heads as if doing so might keep the words trapped in their mouths then looked back to Rose.

“Happy…elsewhere.”

Oh. All the air left her lungs. “I never found you?”

“Oh!” He perked up, tried to look happy and failed. Miserably. “You did.” He nodded and glanced at the Older-Doctor-with-Clara. “Just…returned to the other universe.”

Rose narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“You were happy,” Older-Doctor-with-Clara insisted. He stepped forward but dropped his hand and curled his fingers into a fist. “I know you were.”

“I hate to break up this rather unique reunion,” the youngest Doctor said, humor and bitterness coloring his tone. “Unique even for me. But I’m afraid I have work to do.”

Rose’s first Doctor shuddered. Her younger self stepped beside him and wordlessly took his hand. Rose watched them, seeing how they looked to an outside eye. It simultaneously broke her heart and made it sing.

She smiled at her younger self and hoped Younger Her realized how happy they’d be together. And for a long, long time. Clearing her throat, Rose rubbed her temples and blew out a breath. “If I step into my TARDIS to change into something not quite so stifling, will I come back to bloodshed?”

“Don’t worry, Mum,” Jenny said and stepped forward to the predictable gasps from the Doctors’ not currently married to Rose.

They had to sense Jenny’s mental signature, Rose didn’t know why they were so surprised. Then again, feeling the maybe of something and having it confirmed…Rose looked at Younger Her. That her, all nineteen years of stubbornness, looked on wide-eyed—half scared, mostly intrigued.

Her daughter planted her feet and crossed her arms, and looked so much like Rose’s first Doctor she wanted to laugh. Apparently her first Doctor noticed and stiffened uncomfortably. He eyed Jenny—his blue eyes, Rose’s blonde hair—and that sappy half-smile curled his lips.

“Blimey,” Younger Rose muttered.

“Go on, I’ll make sure we don’t implode anything,” Jenny promised.

Rose wanted to ask how far in the future Jenny and that Doctor were from. She couldn’t bring herself to, but noted the distinct absence of her older self.


	9. Chapter 9

9.  
“Wait.” Her Youngest Doctor stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder.

Rose looked over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“No one should have made it through the Time Lock,” the Doctor hissed. His hand tightened around her shoulder, not painfully but much like her own Doctor (this was getting confusing) held her back. “How did they all get here?”

Rose looked at him, but he hadn’t spoken to her but to…someone off to the side? How bizarre. Maybe her beloved Time Lord had finally snapped. Rose looked to her first Doctor, standing with Younger Rose. He’d been on edge most of their time together. Not just running, but angry, enraged.

A long ago memory surfaced, the first time she’d seen a Dalek. The Doctor held a gun on her, ready to destroy the creature. She hadn’t understood at the time, but now unfortunately she did all too well.

Rose waited a beat for her Youngest Doctor to look at her. When he finally did, she saw the same broken emptiness.

“They’re here because we have to be.” Rose reached up and brushed her fingers over his face, so tired, so angry. “Because we are never alone. _You_ are never alone, my Doctor.”

She didn’t look at the other Doctors who looked very much alone. Behind her, _her_ Doctor understood this moment and waited. She focused on the Doctor before her and pushed all her love and acceptance through a bond they hadn’t established yet.

His eyes changed, her Youngest Doctor, softened as he accepted her love and understanding. As he accepted her hope.

“I’m afraid you’re wrong there, my wife.” His broken smile hurt her heart. “I’m— _me_ —I’m very much alone.” He caught her hand and kissed her fingertips. “But you are not.”

Her Youngest Doctor stepped to the side. Rose held his gaze a moment longer, hoping to convey how very wrong he was. But he stepped back and to the side, and she wondered what he saw or knew.

With a final touch of her Doctor’s hand, Rose turned for their TARDIS. Squeezing between the Doctors, Rose didn’t look at anyone and opened Her doors. Rose blinked furiously and sniffed back tears, taking a moment to focus on the familiar coral interior of her TARDIS. A purple t-shirt lay draped over the railing and a box of tissues sat innocuously on the console.

“You’re a marvel, you are,” Rose praised the TARDIS.

She hurriedly changed into the cooler material, grumbling about the Doctor’s (Doctors) ability to regulate his body temperature. Jenny, too, though Clara looked dressed for a warmer outing. Rose wondered where she and Older-Doctor-with-Clara had been headed.

“Is this little meeting your doing?”

No answer, but that didn’t mean the TARDIS hadn’t heard her.

Rose huffed and blew her nose. “I’m sure it was.” She touched her upper arms. “And I’m sure the length of this shirt is your doing as well.”

Opening the doors again, she looked around the group. Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor and Older-Doctor-with-Clara stood off to the side, both looking longingly between Younger Her, the TARDIS Rose entered, and Jenny.

Youngest Doctor and Rose’s First Doctor stood by the box Rose tripped over. Younger Her hadn’t moved from her Doctor’s side, not that Rose expected anything else. No, that her glared fiercely at the rest of them, clearly ready to take on anyone who so much as looked at her Doctor funny.

Always protective.

Though Rose did notice Younger Rose’s gaze flick over Jenny, speculative and—longing? Her memories from that her hadn’t returned and Rose didn’t know if they would. Or could. Still. Didn’t matter; they’d talked about it, Younger Rose and that Doctor. Talked about maybe having a family, if it were even possible, far in the future.

Except they hadn’t, not yet. For Younger Rose, they hadn’t even made love yet. So many firsts, yet to come. So much heartache, yet so much joy. Rose flushed with warmth and love and that tingly sensation of yet-to-come.

Still, she stood in the midst of a galactic time fuck.

Would some residual memory poke through and initiate the conversation between Younger Rose and her First Doctor? Or maybe—maybe it was what she always thought it was. Their desire to spend as long as forever lasted together and have a family.

Finally, the Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny and Rose’s Doctor stood a little to the side, both flipping their sonics and looking deceptively casual.

“So.” Rose had more to say, a joke, however weak, about saving the universe, but it was then the Doctors noticed her arms.

She hadn’t realized, when she changed, how shocking her marriage tattoos might be. Hadn’t thought about it—her Doctor, after all, knew all about the marriage tattoos, and Rose presumed the older Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny would’ve too.

She ought to have realized what a shock to three out of the six Doctors the blatant proclamation might be. Clearly the TARDIS had, which was why She suggested the short-sleeved shirt.

Add that to the growing list of things that gave her a headache today.

“What?” Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor and Older-Doctor-with-Clara said simultaneously.

Younger Her gasped and Rose’s First Doctor stared, speechless.

“Maybe I should’ve kept my jumper,” Rose grumbled.

Youngest Doctor watched her with a palpable longing that made her ache, but when she stepped for him, he shook his head and turned around. She swore he spoke to someone, or possibly himself, but everyone else clustered behind him.

Rose frowned, but needed to know about her family. In the ensuing hubbub of too many Doctors talking at once, she grabbed her Doctor. 

“Everyone’s okay?” she demanded. She wanted to ask him for something for her headache but there were more important matters. “Those Sisters of Karn wanted to erase me from your life to erase our children. They were terrified of our family.”

His fingers brushed over her tattoos and Rose sighed at the touch. Once more the pounding retreated beneath the warm wave of his loving presence.

“You wouldn’t have anything for this time-migraine, would ya?”

The Doctor paused and tilted his head. “Time migraine?” He gave her one of those dribbled-on-her-shirt looks but dutifully rummaged in his pockets.

“I left as soon as Clara ran into the TARDIS to tell me you disappeared. Jenny and Clara—” he looked over his shoulder to where Clara stood with the wrong Time Lord and where Jenny once more stood next to the Bow-Tie-Wearing Doctor-Not-With Clara— “promised to contact them. But I can still feel them.” He tapped his head. “All safe and sound.”

Rose breathed a sigh of relief and rested her head against his chest. “Good,” she murmured. “Good.”

His fingers pressed to the base of her skull and her headache receded once more. It felt wonderful and Rose wondered if she could stay like this until the present crisis ended. Probably not.

“Now.” Her Doctor kissed her forehead and handed her a plain white pill. “Tell me about Karn.”

“Yes,” Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor said. “Let’s talk about Karn.”

Her Doctor heard her thoughts about the other him’s hair and snickered. Then his hand flew to his own hair and he patted the artful gorgeousness of it. Rose pulled his hand away and squeezed it, smiling gently.

“It looks fine,” she reassured him. “Very sexy.”

He preened, as she knew he would, and she sent him a gentle mental kiss.

Turning to Youngest Doctor she picked up the bottle of water he had given her earlier and swallowed the pain pill. It worked instantly, but not as well as she hoped, thereby confirming her suspicion this wasn’t a normal headache. Wonderful.

“Since you obviously didn’t regenerate after Karn, the Sisterhood’s plan failed. And yet—” she waved to the multitude of Doctors and Roses. Well, extra Rose— “I walked out of your TARDIS into the wastelands of Gallifrey.”

“I can only speculate,” Youngest Doctor said in a voice that was horribly weary, “that they tried again.” He smirked at her, and it looked so incredibly sexy Rose wanted to snog it off his face. “The Sisterhood has a definite grudge against my family.”

“Why?” Jenny asked. “What’ve we ever done to them? We can’t break the Time Lock—or won’t.” She sniffed and looked pointedly around the shack, at her various parents. “Raised better than that, we were. So unless we meet them in one of our futures, they shouldn’t even know who we are. Especially in the midst of the Time War.”

Youngest Doctor tilted his head and studied their eldest daughter. Rose couldn’t read him, not entirely, but knew enough about the Doctor’s mannerisms to know he weighed how much of the story to tell and how much really mattered.

“Because,” that Doctor finally said, hard, intense gaze on Rose. “Instead of a universe filled with Time Lords, they want a universe where the Last of the Time Lords is indebted to them.”


	10. Chapter 10

10.  
Rose scowled. “That does not make any sense.”

The Doctor shrugged, an elegant movement beneath bloodied, torn, and worn leather. Still looked damn sexy. She did so appreciate her man in leather. Rose glanced at her First Doctor to find him still scowling. This had to be so hard on him, being back here far too soon after—

She wanted to go to him, hold him, but Younger Rose stood defiantly beside him, suspiciously watching the group as if any one of the Doctor’s future incarnations might hurt her Doctor. Rose reached for her husband’s hand and squeezed tight.

For all their fights and disagreements, for all their decades together, and even the growth of their relationship, Rose never stopped loving the Doctor. Loved him more today than ever. Looking at their younger selves, her heart clenched with happiness. Younger Rose hadn’t admitted it to herself, not consciously, but she loved her Doctor just as fiercely.

Running her thumb over the back of his knuckles, Rose rested her other hand over their joined ones. _“I love you, my Doctor. Forever.”_

Rose ignored the jolt of the other Doctors mental surprise. Apparently, she hadn’t managed to shied herself from the other versions of her Doctor. It didn’t matter, and she focused only on the man beside her.

He smiled softly down at her. _“And I you, my hearts.”_

Jenny rolled her eyes at them, a familiar sight to Rose. Her daughter then smiled fondly at their little interlude, also a familiar sight. But Jenny’s gaze flicked to Clara, and Rose wondered what happened to the other woman in Jenny’s timeline. Once again, she also wondered how long it’d been—

She shut that thought down and blocked it off. No good came of thinking of that. None.

“Why?” Jenny tilted her head to the side, eyes flicking between the Youngest Doctor and Rose. “I mean what difference would it make? How would forcing you to regenerate make you indebted to them?” Her gaze rested on the Doctor she traveled with (Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny) and scowled. “And why are the Time Ripples back?”

“I can only speculate your mother had something to do with that,” Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny declared. He looked at Rose longingly and stepped forward, hand hovering in the air between them.

Rose didn’t think, but stepped into his embrace. He sighed against her temple, his own mental shields very much in place. “My hearts.”

She kissed just the side of his neck, the spot behind his ear she long ago staked as hers. “My Doctor.”

Her Doctor cleared his throat. “Yes, well. Time Ripples?” He took her hand and pulled her back to his side. Rose shot him a warning look. “What?”

She glared at him. Rose knew what happened—she’d live a long time, had already, but by the time her Doctor regenerated into the man before her, she had either already died or would shortly. That wasn’t something they ever talked about, not even after all their time together.

They finally lived in the moment and enjoyed each day they shared together.

Rose stepped into Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny’s embrace and kissed him gently. “Always, my Doctor.”

He grinned, tried for smugly but ended up looking teary-eyed pleased. Rose squeezed his hand and nodded, smiling at Jenny who also looked teary-eyed. They moved at once, mother and daughter, and Rose hugged her eldest tightly.

“I love you, too, sweetheart.” She held her daughter tighter. “Always.”

“I miss you, Mum.” Jenny’s voice caught, and she cleared her throat.

How long had it been since she died? How long had she lived?

Rose shook her head and forced a smile. “So.” She wiped beneath her eyes and straightened. Her head felt like a hammer beat it and even the oddly diffused light in this shack everything hurt. “How exactly do you think I had anything to do with Time Ripples? I assumed it was Bad Wolf.”

Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor and Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With Clara growled, near identical sounds of disbelief.

“Right.” Rose eyed them. “Bad Wolf not a good sign in your timeline-world-universe—” she looked over her shoulder at Her Doctor. “What am I supposed to call this?”

“I’ve heard that.” Clara looked small and out of place in this group and Rose would’ve felt bad for her except she even stood differently from the few moments she’d spent with Jenny’s Clara. Rose couldn’t pinpoint it, the difference, but this doe-eyed girl who traveled with Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With Clara was not the strong-willed woman Jenny spoke of.

“Bad Wolf,” Clara said. “Where have I heard that?” She jumped a little in place, an odd move, and Rose glanced at Jenny who held back a laugh. “On that Russia submarine! The doctor-scientist-guy, he liked American 80s music and sang about wolves, I forget the song.”

“What were you doing on a Russian submarine in the 80s?” Rose demanded.

Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With Clara shrugged. “Had a bit of an accident with the TARDIS, needed a little rescue.”

Rose opened her mouth but only ended up nodding. She huffed out a little laugh. Of course. Why wouldn’t they have a little accident with the TARDIS and need rescuing by a Russian sub in the 1980s?

“Clara,” Rose said gently, oddly afraid anything louder would break the girl. “What did the Russian scientist sing?”

“Something about a hungry wolf, I’m not really sure, 80s American music isn’t my thing.” Clara looked at her, then around the shack. “If I’d known there was going to be a test, I’d have paid more attention.”

Rose snickered but only nodded. “Probably not important.” She looked to Her Doctor then to Youngest Doctor who continued to stand off to the side. “I don’t think the Sisterhood had anything to do with my being here. They certainly didn’t want me on Karn.”

“No,” Youngest Doctor agreed. “They wanted you anywhere but. You interfered with their plans.”

There was a choked-snort from Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor and Rose met his sad smile. “Never one to do as others want, are you?”

She grinned at him. “What fun is there in that?” But then Rose frowned. They missed something, all of them. “How did the rest of you know to come here?”

“Time Tunnel,” Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor said. He eyed Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With Clara and glared.

Bow-Tie-Wearing Doctor-Who-Traveled-With Clara looked smug. “Interrupted my wedding with Queen Elizabeth, I did.”

Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor rubbed the back of his neck and scowled. “I was stopping a Zygon invasion,” he muttered.

Her Doctor perked up. “So that’s why she tried to kill me and Martha!”

Rose narrowed her eyes at Her Doctor. “Married Queen Elizabeth?”

He looked back at her, all innocence and affront. “It wasn’t me, Rose.” Her Doctor sniffed and raised her hand to his lips. “Only married you, my hearts.”

“Hmm.” But Rose curled her fingers around his.

“How do any of you keep this straight?” Younger Rose asked from off to the side with her First Doctor. “And who the hell do you keep talking to?”

Rose looked at Younger Rose, but she was talking to Youngest Doctor. No, Rose had no idea how she kept things straight, but at least she had the advantage of meeting 3 of the 4 Doctors, even if there were 2 of her Doctor and 2 of the Bow-Tie-Traveling Doctors.

Youngest Doctor, brushed his hands down his ruined leather jacket and looked as regal as Rose knew him to be from various TARDIS photos. “The Moment.”


	11. Chapter 11

11.  
Well, if it’d been chaos before, now it was a true pell-mell of madness. Rose sighed and sat on the box, only to be yanked up by Her Youngest Doctor.

“My darling wife, please don’t sit on that.”

“You know—” Rose looked into his haunted gaze, so reminiscent of her First Doctor. Even the man currently her husband— “when you told me about this, ah, this.” She didn’t want to say moment given the circumstances. “When you said how you used it—” Rose waved at the box, so innocuous, so seemingly harmless— “I envisioned something bigger.”

“You mean with a big red button?” Youngest Doctor’s lips twitched. “I did ask for one.”

“Oh.” Rose nodded, unsettled. “And no one else can see it?”

Youngest Doctor looked to the side, presumably where the Moment stood. Considering the Moment took corporeal form. Huh. A chill raced over Rose’s arms, and she very much wished she’d kept her jumper. But his fingers twined with hers, and the cold fear settling in her stomach eased.

Rose sought out her own Doctor’s gaze, but he looked to Her First Doctor, horrified.

“I’m sorry.” The words scraped her throat, tore at her heart. She hated he had to do this. Alone.

Not alone.

“You said you ended the War alone.” Rose looked from Youngest Doctor to Her Doctor. “You very clearly told me only you were there with the Moment.”

“I was.” Her First Doctor’s voice cut across the various Doctors’, silencing the shack. He looked at his hands, as if still seeing the blood there. Younger Rose took one hand in hers and squeezed. “It was me, only me.” He snorted. “Me TARDIS even refused to materialize here.”

“Yes.” Youngest Doctor dropped her hand and Rose wondered why. In the next instant she knew it was because he didn’t want the comfort of another’s—of her—touch. “She landed, but not in here.”

“Maybe this is why?” Rose looked around the crowded cabin. Yes, cabin. Sounded better than shack. “Maybe She knew about this.”

There it was again, niggling at her. Rose closed her eyes and followed the thread, the tantalizing filament that reminded her of her connection with the TARDIS. Simultaneously, she reached for the Doctor’s blue and silver thread and Jenny’s purple thread. Rose didn’t know why—comfort perhaps. 

The Doctor wasn’t the only one seeking comfort.

“How’d you all get here?” The words escaped her lips before she realized she wanted to say them. Opening her eyes, she met Her Doctor’s, then Jenny’s.

Turning to her First Doctor, Rose tilted her head and looked from her younger self to the Doctor. “I clearly remember when this was.” She nodded to them, carefully keeping her memories behind a wall. Just in case. “And I don’t remember this happening. I’m sure I’d have had a lot more questions if I did remember.”

Like on regeneration and the Time War. It’d take Rose years to piece together the bits the Doctor let slip. Even when he talked about incidents, about battles and people, it was always in snippets. Stories about Romana, about Leela, about Braxiatel. The Nightmare Child and Davros. The Could-have-been King with his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres. The constant reset of time.

“No, our—” she nodded to Younger Rose— “our memories were wiped.” She turned to Youngest Doctor. “Did the Moment do that? Does the Moment plan on doing that?”

Time grammar, so confusing.

“She hasn’t said,” the Youngest Doctor looked to his side again. “But then we hadn’t talked about it, either. I didn’t expect, well, all these mes to show up. She’s only given me sarcastic quips since.”

“And did it—er, she—bring us all here?”

“She’s a creation of many words and more riddles, but very few answers.”

Rose snorted. “Definitely a Time Lord creation, then.”

“Rose is right.” Her Doctor took her hand, and she caught the faintest glimmer of jealousy through his touch. “I materialized off Laracopa, trying to track you when you—when Clara said you disappeared. I aimed for the Vortex to clear up the interference but ended up here.”

“We were in the Vortex,” Her First Doctor said. “Picked up a Mauve Alert, but when we landed, the alert stopped, and we stepped out here.”

Rose felt her Doctor’s amusement through their bond and shared a conspiratorial smile with him. They’d have to call Jack after this. Reminisce.

“And you?” Rose looked to Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor and Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With Clara. “You’re from a totally different timeline. Where were you?” She scowled. “Other than marrying Queen Elizabeth. How did you arrive here? What did you expect?”

“Clara and I were in the Black Vault,” Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With Clara said and straightened said bowtie. “Kate Stewart summoned us.”

Black Vault? Kate Stewart? Wait—Rose knew that name. She looked to Her Doctor who nodded.

“Kate Stewart of UNIT? Allister’s daughter? The one who wants to dissect my family?”

Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With Clara opened his mouth then snapped it closed. He looked horrified. Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny snorted and said, “Timelines are funny things.”

“And how did you get here?” Rose demanded, terror for her family once more freezing her in place. Nausea churned her stomach and she squeezed Her Doctor’s hand tighter. 

“Oh, Jenny and I were just traveling around. Jumping from place to place.” Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny’s voice saddened, quieted. He looked heartbroken—just plain broken.

In the suddenly silent cabin, his words echoed like a gunshot.

“And how did you end up here?” Rose repeated, slower, dreading the answer.

“We were looking for you, Mum.” Jenny looked sad again, devastated. “When you disappeared off Laracopa, we never found you.”


	12. Chapter 12

12.  
Rose blinked. The nausea welled up and she stumbled over the Moment’s box, past the other crates, retching. Her fingers dug into the sandy ground, but she barely felt it. No, Rose floated outside her body, unable to understand what Jenny said.

Lost.

She had disappeared in that Time Storm or some TARDIS snap of her metaphorical fingers or a Bad Wolf moment—no pun intended—and her family had never found her. Rose didn’t understand how that was even possible, how she had disappeared from Laracopa but they all—so many of her Doctors—had ended up here.

Even Jenny and the Doctor who continued to search for her. No wonder Jenny and Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny looked devastated and thrilled to see her. Cautious. Hopeful. Wary.

“Easy, love.” Her Doctor’s cool hands brushed the hair from the back of her neck, along her arms. “I’ve got you. Easy, my hearts.”

“How long was I gone?” She looked up at him, eyes tearing, a nasty taste in her mouth, stomach a tight ball of unease. Fear. “For you, when you realized I was gone, how long for you?”

“Thirty-four minutes.”

Rose leaned into him, held him close. His arms wrapped tight around her, one hand cupping the back of her head against his chest. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. The double beat of his hearts eased her, soothed her, and she let the sound—familiar and comforting and hers—ground her.

“Second longest thirty-four minutes of my life.” He tried to joke but the words fell flat.

“Second?” Rose pulled back just enough to look up at him.

Her Doctor brushed her hair from her face and kissed her softly. “I found you after only thirty-four minutes. It took far longer when you were trapped in the other Universe.”

_Oh, my Doctor._

But he gave her that slow, sexy smile and her fear eased. Rising in a smooth move, he helped her stand and offered a toothbrush with Venusian spearmint. One of her favorites. She turned from the crowd and quickly cleaned her teeth, rinsing with the water Her Youngest Doctor had given her when she first arrived. A lifetime ago now. The spearmint did little to appease either the foul taste in her mouth or the sourness of her stomach.

Or the desperation to fix whatever happened between her arriving on Karn and whatever her family had gone through. For however long they’d searched for her. Finishing up, she eyed Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny and her daughter but couldn’t force the words past her lips.

The answer terrified her.

“Three hundred eighteen years, five months, two days, twelve hours, and thirty-one minutes.” Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny cleared his throat, nervously adjusted his bowtie, and looked to Jenny, then to the ground. “Far too long.”

Rose tried to nod, but her head hurt, her neck hurt—everything hurt with Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny’s admission. Once more, she felt as if she floated outside herself, as if she weren’t really in this room, not really here. Her Doctor’s arm around her shoulders, his fingers caressing her marriage tattoos, the very solid presence of his bond across her senses, steadied her.

“Is this a Time Ripple, then?” Rose swallowed hard and straightened. “Jenny, you said you thought the Time Ripples had stopped, what makes you think this is one of them?”

Jenny nodded to Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor and Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Clara, but Rose was already nodding along with her daughter. The daughter she vowed would never see a Timeline where they traveled the Universe, searching for her.

Rose idly wondered what happened to Clara—Jenny’s Clara, not the other Doctor’s Clara—but decided not to ask. If she disappeared from Laracopa (34 minutes or 318+years ago) Rose knew that blooming relationship had either ended, then and there, with her family’s frantic search for her or Clara had long since…died.

She licked her lips and played with her wedding ring, heart breaking for her daughter, her family. Mind racing with what ifs and whys and what the hell happeneds.

“This is something, or the TARDIS wouldn’t have brought us here.” Jenny’s smile, so vivid and wide and full of life, cracked. “We obviously hadn’t planned to land on Gallifrey, let along break through the Time Lock.”

“But you all did.” Her Doctor looked at the others in turn, then to the Youngest Doctor. “Romana promised me the Time Lock remained in place and this locale was secure.”

“Yes.” Youngest Doctor sniffed and shrugged, a rather beautiful movement of his lean, muscular body if Rose did say so herself. “I checked the readings on my TARDIS myself. You, my wife, didn’t even register on Her scans.”

“I stepped out of your TARDIS and into the desert then walked here. I didn’t see the TARDIS. She wouldn’t have picked me up.” Rose frowned. “Or She purposely blocked my bioreading as She’s the reason I’m here.”

“I’m not sure why any of you are here,” Her Youngest Doctor muttered.

“Maybe we’re here to stop you.”

Rose jerked at Clara’s statement and looked to the woman who looked nothing like her daughter’s lover. “What? Why?”

“I mean, well, destroying a planet.” Clara fidgeted with the sleeves of her dress, awkward and out of place. No, not at all like the woman Rose had met on Laracopa, the strong, funny, adventurous woman Jenny had fallen in love with. “All the people. Maybe you don’t have to.”

“What have you been telling her?” Rose’s First Doctor exploded. “What lies about the Time Lords and Daleks have you been spreading?” His accent thickened with every word and he stormed to Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Clara, thunderous and murderous.

“Doctor.” Younger Rose lunged forward and grabbed his arm, halting him from physically punching his older self—one of his older selves.

Rose turned to Her Youngest Doctor and stepped out of Her Doctor’s embrace. “Why the Moment?”

“What?” His heartbroken gaze met hers.

“You chose the Moment on purpose—no, you said the Moment chose you.” She looked to Her Doctor, who looked as broken and defeated as this one. As Her First Doctor. “You said you and Romana tried to stop the fighting, tried to prevent Rassilon from taking the Time Lords to an ethereal, eternal existence. That the two of you broke into the Time Lord armory.”

“We did not break in,” Youngest Doctor interrupted with a regal tilt to his head and that look on his face that very clearly said she’d dribbled on her shirt. Rose almost smiled at the familiar sight but felt as if Time, very clearly, ticked down to zero. “We appropriated a pass and entered without so much as an alarm sounding.”

She did grin then and stepped to him. This started when she had suddenly found herself on Karn. This started with the two of them. Rose had a feeling it needed to end with the two of them, no matter how many questions she had, what she wanted to know about the future, about alternate timelines.

“The Moment brought us all here, then.” Rose looked to his side, but still couldn’t see whatever he saw, whatever form the Moment took. “Why?”

“Either to talk me out of pressing the button or talk me into it.” Her Youngest Doctor looked down to the innocuous box and shook his head.

Rose wanted to brush his curls from his forehead, wanted to comfort him. Despite her headache, despite the number of Doctors clambering in her brain, despite her fear for her family and her determination to change whatever happened when she had been swept up in the Time Storm or a Bad Wolf Moment or whatever, she wanted to hold him.

He very clearly did not want her comfort. Any comfort.

“To show you the what ifs, the maybes, the perhaps.” Rose took his hand.

“To show me what I can no longer have,” Her Youngest Doctor, the Doctor responsible for stopping the Time War corrected. “If I press the button, I’m destroying my future.” His long fingers brushed over her cheek. “I’m changing my future where you’re a part of it, my beautiful wife.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! RL. Ugh.

13.  
The Doctor, the one immediately succeeding the man who stopped the Time War, watched his younger self and an older Rose talk as intimately as if they’d truly been intimate for years. Decades. It tugged his hearts, an ache he hadn’t been prepared for—prepared to accept at least.

He looked to the Rose who traveled with him, but she didn’t meet his gaze. She watched his younger self and her older self. What went through her mind? What questions and hopes?

What went through her heart? Her beautiful, single human heart?

Rose slipped her hand in his—when had she stopped touching him? —and the feel of her skin against his rougher palm, of her calming presence despite her own nervous concern (and confusion, he hadn’t told her about regeneration, had he) eased around his hearts.

“You don’t remember any of this, do you.” Rose looked to him, her brandy eyes breaking. For him. Everything she thought so apparent in her gaze, the softness of her voice, in the simplicity of her hand in his. “You pressed that button, ended everything you knew and loved. But you don’t remember it.”

“I remember pressing the button.” He closed his eyes but didn’t need to do so to picture those final days. Final moments. “I spoke with Romana, said my farewells to the only person who believed in me, and came here.”

“Without the TARDIS?” Rose rubbed her thumb over his knuckles, a soothing movement he vowed never to take for granted. “She abandoned you?”

“No.” The Doctor cleared his throat. “I think—if this truly happened and I just forgot—I think the Old Girl knew and stayed away.”

“You’re not alone, Doctor. I’ll always be here with you.”

He looked down at her and his love for her, the hope that grew with every day she stayed with him, his worshiping-adoration broke free. Refused to stay behind the locked door he tried to keep closed. Rose grinned up at him, and leaned her head on his arm, covering his hand with her other one. Holding him close.

“There’s me.”

 ********  
The Doctor who had not married Rose, who had never known the pleasure of her body, who had tried to forget the warmth of her love wrapping around him every time she grinned up at him and held his hand, watched his older self. Other self. 

Not an older regeneration but him, this him. This other him watched Rose with a combination of that love-worship-adoration he felt for her even now. And jealousy over the way she touched and talked with his younger self, the man who sacrificed himself to become the warrior who ended the War.

Longing. A breath-holding hope.

This was a him who never lost Rose. Who hadn’t survived years without her hand in his, running beside him. A him who embraced his emotions and hadn’t let fear and self-loathing block him from his fondest hopes.

“How long?” The question slipped out before his, rather lacking, Time Lord Reflexes had the chance to stop it up. How long had they been together?

Older him—both older bow-tie-wearing hims—looked at the Doctor. He sensed it but couldn’t pull his gaze from his other self. That man turned eyes that weren’t as haunted, weren’t broken. Knew Rose’s love.

“Not long enough. Never long enough.”

The Doctor nodded, and every one of his long nine hundred years weighed on his shoulders. “Was she—the Void. Pete’s World.”

“She came back to me.”

Questions, so many crowded his tongue—after how long? Was there a metacrisis? What about Donna? —but this time his (still lacking) Time Lord Reflexes kicked in and he kept his damn mouth shut. It didn’t matter. In the end, nothing else mattered except Rose was with him and they had a beautiful family.

And Jenny.

His eyes slid to his daughter, presumed dead, and he cursed himself. Had Rose being there meant Jenny hadn’t died? Had Rose’s presence altered that timeline? The timeline had already altered, if Rose found her way back to him. When had that been? Why hadn’t he stayed? Why hadn’t he looked for her? Why—why—why.

“If this timeline stays—” the older Doctor, the one with Clara not with Jenny cleared his throat— “I’ll find her. Jenny.” He nodded, sniffing slightly and straightened his bowtie. “But I hope it doesn’t.” His vicious words echoed the words beating in the Doctor’s hearts. “I hope this timeline, _our timeline_ , crumbles to dust and the wind blows the dust to every corner of the Universe, so no two particles ever meet and we never have to live…like this.”

“Without Rose.” The words slipped between the cracks of his control. When he met the gaze of the older Doctor, he saw the same sentiment there.

“Without Rose,” the other Doctor echoed.

 ********  
The Doctor who traveled with his daughter heard that conversation, of course he did, and wished the same thing.

“You find her, yeah?” Jenny looked to him, but her gaze immediately slid back to Rose and his younger, war-torn self. “I mean that you is here, and Mum is here, so you find her yeah? We find her? And this timeline, these last three hundred years, they won’t mean anything?”

The hope in his eldest’s voice punched him in the gut. “Yeah.” He swallowed, but Rose had long ago made him promise never to lie to her or their children, even if she wasn’t there to witness it. He’d kept that promise, even after all this time, because he’d made it to Rose. “I’m pretty sure.”

“How sure?” Jenny tilted her head—so much like her mother—but he knew she already calculated the odds.

“I don’t know why we never found her, Jenny.” He cleared his throat. “Not if that me found her here. Timelines are finicky things.”

“You mean the Sisterhood—Mum never escaped Karn. Even though you never regenerated there, you didn’t drink whatever they wanted you to, they—and Mum never made it off that planet.” Jenny watched him with the weight of the universes in her blue gaze.

The Doctor couldn’t look at her and looked around the cabin/shack instead. “Yeah,” he finally said. “But that doesn’t happen, not now.” 

“Good,” Jenny swore. “Good.”

 ********  
The Moment watched her Doctor, all her Doctors, the ones that remembered her, the ones that hated her, the ones from timelines that won’t be and shouldn’t be and will never be. She could—theoretically—explain the whys and hows it all came together.

Why she brought them all here, why there were different timelines.

She chose not to.

None of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was the Doctor who carried her into this shack, this dilapidated nothing in the middle of nowhere. The Moment wondered if the Doctor knew what this place had once been.

If he remembered.

Just as well he did not. Or refused to. Possibly chose not to.

It was, after all, a long time ago. Eons and bodies, and even names.

The Doctor, had, indeed, created her—when Gallifrey knew him as The Other. The man who chose not to reveal his name to history. The Moment, for all her consciousness, for all she (he/it/they—pronouns were so unnecessary) could see the vastness of time more than a Time Lord or a TARDIS or the Matrix, the Moment had never seen the outcome of this moment.

Pun intended.

It was, she decided, nice to know her Doctor chose well.

Even if he’d never remember why.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are almost to the end of this journey. Thank you for sticking with me, this verse, and this story! I must extend my eternal gratitude to Mrs. Bertucci for her amazing patience, plotting skills, and beta.

14  
Rose’s mind whirled. She had questions, of course, about alternate timelines and why she never made it back to her family. That last one didn’t make sense. How could she have not if she stood here now?

Unless in that Doctor-Traveling-With-Jenny’s timeline, she hadn’t made it off Karn.

Karn.

That—that bothered her.

“Why did I appear there?” She asked Her Youngest Doctor. “If it was to stop you from drinking the potion then I always stopped you. My Doctor doesn’t remember me being there.”

“Maybe that’s the Time Twist. Or Time Ripple, as you call them.” He shrugged, such an elegant movement. One that belied the resignation in his voice. The deadness in his gaze. “Maybe that’s the starting point.”

Rose frowned and twisted her earring. She looked from Her Youngest Doctor to Her Doctor, eyes sliding over her Younger Self and Her First Doctor. So many to keep straight, and yet she didn’t have a problem.

Other than the headache.

They were all so distinct she easily separated them. The two Doctors from an alternate future who watched her with such anguish—what had they said? One of them said something about not expecting this Doctor.

“Who?” Rose turned to them, standing by their TARDISes, apart from everyone. “Who did you expect here? What did you expect?”

The man who looked like Her Doctor met her gaze. His longer, flatter hair made him look forlorn, despondent. His eyes broke her.

“Another me.”

“Another you?” Her Doctor repeated. “What do you mean? _Who_ do you mean?”

But that Doctor, Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor, looked away from Rose and, though she couldn’t anticipate his next words as she could Her Doctor, she knew what he was about to say.

“On Karn, the Sisterhood wanted you to regenerate.” She licked her lips and glanced from Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor to Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With Clara. “You did. I wasn’t there or someone else—Jenny or the TARDIS or Romana. Anyone. You were alone. And you drank.”

“Yes.” Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor sniffed and looked away. “Foul tasting stuff, it was, too.”

“And you regenerated—we regenerated.” Her Youngest Doctor’s voice startled her. He suddenly stood beside her, and once again Rose was struck with the rightness of that.

As much as she loved Her Doctor, as much as she wanted to reach for his hand, whatever Time… _thing_ … this was, it started with the two of them. It needed to end with the two of them. That knowledge beat through her with every thump of her heart, roaring loudly in her ears.

Rose reached for that Doctor’s hand, mildly surprised when nothing happened. Not sure what she expected—the end of the world, the end of time, the end of her, of them, she had no idea—Rose tightened her grip on Her Youngest Doctor’s hand and held tight.

“We regenerated.” Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Clara added. “Right there in that dank little cave.”

“Into who?” Rose whispered.

The cabin echoed around her. Her First Doctor, standing with Younger Rose, watched them with horror, a kind of sickening revulsion and understanding. Younger Rose, who did not understand, kept quiet and held her Doctor’s hand tight.

Her Doctor sucked in a deep breath and stiffened, that same look of awful dread, of panicked understanding on his face. Doctor-Who-Traveled-with-Jenny inched from the other two Doctors, the ones not from this timeline.

“The Warrior Doctor,” Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With Clara said.

“There’s no such thing,” Rose’s Doctor said.

But they all shivered, all the Doctors. Even Jenny. It crawled over them, a slithering, slinking timeline of what ifs and maybes and might have beens. Rose couldn’t feel it, she didn’t have too.

It seeped into her soul, the cold desperation of that timeline. The could have been almosts. Her mind shouted for her family, reaching for each of them in the frantic hope that all she remembered from her life had not been a lie. Would not be erased. Had not been erased.

“Why? Who? What’s the purpose?” Mouth dry, she swallowed but the words croaked out, louder and more desperate. “If the Sisterhood of Karn wanted control over the Last of the Time Lords—” and she had no idea why that seemed better capitalized in her head— “then what’s the purpose of having a War Doctor?”

Rose shook her head, sick. Beside her, hand like ice in hers, Her Youngest Doctor froze. She forced her gaze from Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor and Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Clara and stared at him.

“You would have. You would’ve drank that thing and turned into this ridiculously named War Doctor.”

“Yes.”

Her gaze swung wildly from that Doctor to Her First Doctor then landed on Her Doctor. “Why?”

“Thought I needed to. The War doesn’t want Doctors.”

“The War needed a Warrior,” Her First Doctor finished as if it was something he said—or thought—often.

“I don’t understand.” Jenny stepped forward, arms crossed and head tilted. Rose heard Her First Doctor snort and Younger Rose gasp. They saw the resemblance, too. “If the Sisterhood wanted you to be this Warrior, this War Doctor, what was their goal? They had to have a point, yeah? Was it just to use that leverage later? Call you up whenever they needed the Doctor?”

Jenny snorted and in the instant before she said her next words, Rose knew deflection when she heard it.

“Guess they don’t know how rubbish you are at answering your phone.”

Her Youngest Doctor hummed, and Rose glanced up at him. His lips tilted upward, and she thought, for a wild moment, he relaxed. Accepted—her, them, their future. But his hand slipped from hers and he crossed his arms over his leather-clad chest.

“Phone.” The Doctor snorted. “Yes.”

Rose looked at him, ice settling in her stomach. It shivered over her arms and burned her marriage tattoos. The rest of the room faded. Everything faded, the clamoring of her family, the headache beating behind her eyes.

“Doctor.”

He looked at her with such cold beautifulness, Rose wanted to cry. “This is all very domestic,” he sneered in that lovely voice.

And now Rose wanted to vomit.

“How convenient, you appearing here, wife.” His gaze burned through her, cold anger and rage. The Oncoming Storm at the pinnacle of his fury.

“It is.” Rose licked her lips, mouth dry, cold sweat sticking her shirt along her back. “You think this is a trap.”

“Or a joke.” He snorted, and Rose wanted to look around, wanted to see the others, but couldn’t tear her gaze from his. “The worst kind. I guess I have the Sisterhood to thank for that.”

“You think they transported me here.” It wasn’t a question.

“I think they want me to do their bidding. I think they want to control me.” The room narrowed in with the Doctor’s fury.

Rose knew his anger, had seen it directed at Daleks and Cybermen and Zygons—at humans and UNIT and himself. Never, not once since taking his hand in that musty basement, had she seen it directed at her.

“What if I don’t push that button?” He nodded toward Clara, gaze flicking to the woman who was and was not her daughter’s lover. “What happens to Gallifrey then? The Time Lords? _Rassilon_?”

The Doctor spat that name, venom making it sizzle with unimaginable hatred. It slithered over her and Rose shook with it.

“They come back? They have a second chance to destroy the universe? Every single one? Rassilon didn’t care about the multiverse, he planned to ascend with his chosen few to a higher plain. And only Romana and I dared stop him. He trapped or killed everyone else. _Everyone._ He wasn’t going to stop—he’s _not_ going to stop.”

His words echoed around the room, booming for all their quietness. Rose took a step forward, but walked no closer to the Doctor, frozen or stunned or farther from him than she realized, it didn’t matter.

The Doctor stood alone.

“So why does the Sisterhood, who profess to hate all things Time Lord, want me to be the Warrior Doctor?” His glare drilled into her. “Or was that, too, a ruse? They haven’t come after me since that day. They’ve had ample opportunity—the War has raged for eons and a single day.”

His voice broke and Rose reached for him, instinct, compassion. Love. The Doctor flinched away.

“Maybe I am mad.” His voice dropped, the barest whisper of anguish. “Maybe that’s what the Moment meant. Gather all my futures here and show me what I could have, who I could be, only to take it all away from me.”

“Doctor—”

“And you, my wife.” His fingers, long and gentle and graceful, brushed her cheek. “What purpose do you serve only to fool me into believing I have that future? That the choice I must make here will offer me that future.”

“It will.” Rose swallowed against the lump in her throat but of course it didn’t dislodge. “This future does happen.”

“No, my wife.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, there and gone before Rose knew how to react. “It doesn’t. I have no future. And I’m sorry I’ll miss it.”

She tried to grab his hand, tried to stop him or comfort him or—she had no idea. But the Doctor stepped to the innocuous box and crouched before it, hand on the big red button.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the last chapter. Nope. Not.

15  
The Doctor looked up at The Moment. The consciousness, or his consciousness, he couldn’t tell. Or didn’t want to.

The air in the cabin grew thick and heavy, heavier than it had been when he first walked in carrying the box that possessed the power to destroy all of creation. He moved through it like treacle, each step a struggle, each breath a task, each thought worse than the one before.

“I don’t want to destroy all of creation.” The words shot through the cabin, but barely left his lips for how quietly he spoke them.

In the cabin, with time slowing around the rest of the occupants, he saw his next regeneration look at the younger version of his wife. So young, but in her eyes, watching her Doctor, he saw the same fire in the older woman who fought him, for him, on Karn. That woman watched him with heartbreaking understanding, lips slightly parted, hand just starting to reach out for him.

Despite temptation, he didn’t look at anyone else. Merely returned his gaze to the Moment, who watched him with those same eyes he longed to see every day.

“I know you don’t, my Doctor.” The Moment, the image of his wife, reached out to touch him, but her hand never made contact. “You are so much more than the memories you possess—or have forgotten. You are exactly what the universe needs to survive.”

Time slowed, stopped. The Doctor idly wondered if it did so across galaxies or just here. He hoped the Moment, who seemed to have that kind of power, stopped all time. Stopped the Daleks from killing and the Time Lords from destroying anything that remained.

Stopped the killing, even for a moment, the senseless destruction and the blind rage. He closed his eyes against the fall of Arcadia and Davros’s ship flying into the jaws of the Nightmare Child. He’d tried. Even Davros, he’d tried to save.

The Doctor failed. Every time.

Opening his eyes, he was unable to look around the cabin, at his future selves, at his selves who remembered this moment—pun fully intended thank you—and those who remembered a different man. He didn’t look at his daughter, the smart blonde who took after her mother, or at his wife.

Definitely not at his wife.

“Why show me this?” The words cut like knives along his throat, deep into his hearts. “Why show me these futures?”

The Moment tilted her head, so much like the very real woman her image portrayed. “Why do you think?”

“I don’t have time for your games!” He shouted, furious enough to throw the box across the room. It blinked out of mid-air and reappeared directly in front of him. Damn cheeky thing.

“You should treat your creations with more care, my Doctor.” The Moment tsked. “I’ve waited a very long time to see you again.”

“You said that before.” He narrowed his eyes at her, all too aware of the other sets of eyes, now frozen in time, yet still boring into his back.

The Doctor didn’t need to look to know they couldn’t see him, that the stoppage of time affected all of them as well as the rest of whatever the Moment wanted. Still, Rose’s presence burned through him, so close. Never close enough. 

“I said a lot of things.” The Moment winked. “But when you threw yourself into the Looms, all your memories from before—vanished.”

“Before?” He dug deep into his memory, spotty though it was in this regeneration. Images of a previous life tickled his mind’s eye, but even his impressive talents couldn’t make those images—memories or dreams or visions–clear.

“It doesn’t matter.” Defeated, the Doctor waved a hand in dismissal. “None of that matters now.”

Drawn to his wife’s time-frozen face, he swallowed against the weight of grief. His hands cupped her face before he realized he moved. Fighting tears, choking grief, heavy with resignation, the Doctor kissed her softly on her slightly-parted lips.

“You’ve given me the hope I needed to get through this War, my wife.” The Doctor brushed her hair from her face, an odd move with time halted around her. “No wonder I fell in love with you.”

Clearing his throat, eyes blurry with tears, he took another breath to collect himself. To look at Jenny, at a younger version of his wife—he couldn’t bear to call her by name when he’d never see her now. Pressing his lips once more to the Rose he met eons ago, hours for her, not quite yet for him, the Doctor stepped back.

“I’m ready.” He met the Moment’s curious-sad-ancient eyes. “I know what I have to do.”

“Oh?” She perked up as if they played a game. “What is that, then?”

“Don’t be stupid,” he snapped. “It’s unbecoming of a consciousness I created.”

The Doctor wasn’t entirely sure where those words came from, but they settled, right and true, in his hearts. He pushed it all aside.

“I am Theta. Death. It seems that blasted childhood name had a meaning after all. Eight. Theta.” He looked from the Moment to the box. Still the Moment, he supposed.

“I was created to end this War.” The Doctor looked at his hands as if they were literally stained with blood. He snorted. “’Lord Krsna said: I am terrible time the destroyer of all beings in all worlds, engaged to destroy all beings in this world; of those heroic soldiers presently situated in the opposing army, even without you none will be spared.’”

He met the Moment’s gaze. “’I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.’ No matter how you translate it, no matter its origins, it means the same. I created myself to end the Last Great Time War.”

And then it was there, the words, the memory he didn’t remember but tumbled out anyway. “That’s why I jumped into the Looms. I knew what Rassilon planned even then, before the Time Lords were stupid enough to bring him back. Knew what he was capable of.”

“The Other’s name was banished from the records,” the Moment said as if he didn’t know that. Hadn’t wondered what someone could possibly do to warrant such a punishment, even in Time Lord society. “Do you know why?” She didn’t give him the chance to answer. “Because you didn’t want anyone knowing you when you returned. That’s why Rassilon hunted you even as you fought. That’s why the upper echelon of Time Lords spurned you.”

“If I didn’t know who I was, how did they?”

“Faint echoes of Time. They remain even on Gallifrey. Rassilon left records only the highest of government have access to.”

The Doctor laughed. “I find it difficult to believe that Time Lords can keep a secret that big, that damning, for this long.”

“It’s a curse, never to be spoken.” She tilted her head, a faint smile teasing her generous lips. 

Lips he wanted to know intimately. As if she read his mind—entirely possible—her tongue teased the corner of her mouth, a move he’d watched his wife do. A move that, even with their short time together, drove him to the edge of sanity.

“Are you familiar with the Earth meaning of Tau?” The Moment’s question caught him off guard.

“Of course.” He eyed the creature or consciousness or his own past awareness. “What does an archaic Earth term have to do with me or you or this Time War?”

“You focus so much on your present life. The Doctor, always willing to help. The man who doesn’t give second chances—or won’t.” The Moment frowned. “I get confused, past or present, now or then?” She grinned again and winked. “You run from your past always moving. Theta. Death. But Theta is closely linked to Tau. Life. Resurrection.”

“Also time, a circle constant, shear stress in continuum mechanics, particle physics, astronomy, a whole host of other time constants—” The Doctor stopped. “Oh.”

The Moment grinned, but her eyes remained sad. “Yes. Oh.”

The Doctor waved it away. “On Gallifrey, it means nothing.”

“Theta does. You forget, Doctor, I know all. I see all. I am all. I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of every existence everywhere.”

He’d heard that before, from the same lips if not the same being. As they had then, the words sent a shiver of dread-hope-love down his spine. “So you’re saying I’ll live.” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “Wonderful.”

His gaze drifted to his wife. He had to curl his hands into fists to stop from reaching for her. “I’ll lose her, won’t I.” It wasn’t a question.

“Doctor.” He looked to the Moment and just like that, forgot what he’d just said. “That’s your punishment. You go on.”

“I don’t want to,” he admitted.

His chest ached, hearts pounding as if he’d just lost something. Someone. His world, his universe. The Doctor looked around the cabin but saw nothing beyond the abandon crates and the Moment before him.

Not even his TARDIS stood in this room, silent witness to his terrible deed.

“You never did say why you chose that form. Who are you supposed to be?”

Her smile broke and with it something inside him. “To help you chose. It’s an ancient body—and so new.”

The Doctor looked down at the box, the Moment, the big red button beckoning and repelling, cajoling and threatening and—

He lay his hand on it. Eyes closed, wishing Romana had been here so he could see her one last time. Her voice still rang in the air. It hadn’t been long since they’d signed off, if he called her back, she’d still be there, the guards wouldn’t have had time to break in.

“All these years, fighting with no hope, no promise of a future.” He looked at his hands, expecting—another one of his or someone else’s or he didn’t know. A hand to hold, maybe. “I should’ve died a thousand times over. Maybe I did. Or maybe that’s my punishment. Never dying.”

“Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends.”

The Doctor looked up at the Moment and frowned. “I know those words.” They shuddered over his skin, familiar and new, just as the voice that said them.

“It’s your choice, Doctor.”

“It always was.” He paused. “Why aren’t you stopping me? Why aren’t you offering me another way? If the Moment has a consciousness—” he nodded to her— “which you clearly are, then why are you condoning genocide?”

“There’s always another way. But is that way better? If you don’t end this War, my Doctor, will the Daleks ever stop? Will the Time Lords?”

“No. They won’t. The Time Lords brought back Rassilon and who knows who else. I’ve heard rumors they brought back the Master, but Romana never found any solid evidence.”

He didn’t know what he’d have done if those rumors had been true. His oldest friend. His greatest enemy. What would the Doctor have done if he found the Master, revived, another set of regenerations bestowed upon him?

“They won’t stop. They’ll follow Rassilon to the end of time and destroy every single universe if that’s what he wants just so they can survive. The Daleks are no better. Two evenly matched nightmares in a never-ending battle.”

The Doctor closed his eyes against the destruction playing in his mind’s eye. Even now, with the Daleks attacking Gallifrey, it’d never stop. “The Time Lords won’t stop until they win. In that respect, they’re just like the Daleks…” he trailed off. “Never ending battle.”

“You can destroy them. Yes. Or you can lock them in eternal battle.”

He looked up at the Moment, surprised at her words, the words echoing in his brain, his hearts. “I can time lock them, but what of the other species? They don’t deserve to be caught in that.”

“I am the Moment. Every moment. I’m not just a big red button you know.” She winked at him. “You wanted one to make this easier for you, but I’m afraid this isn’t the easy choice. I’m more than the sum of my parts, Doctor.”

“The Universe will end if someone doesn’t make a stand,” he said slowly. “I am that someone.” He wasn’t sure where his next words came from, but he knew deep down in his hearts, they were right. “The Universe needs a Doctor.”

“Is that your choice then?” She watched him with such sad eyes, the Doctor wondered what she knew. Saw. More importantly, he wondered who she was.

“The other species don’t deserve to be caught in a war they didn’t want.” He looked at his hands. Empty hands. No one to hold his hand now. “Trapping the Time Lords and the Daleks in the Time Lock will stop them, will save the universe, the multiverse, and keep all of creation safe from two mad species.”

The Doctor paused, alone in this cabin with only a consciousness he’d created untold eons ago in another life, another body, as another person he didn’t remember. “I’m ready.”

“Are you?” Her eyebrow raised and her head tilted and an odd familiarity tingled over his skin.

“For death?” he snorted. “As I’ll ever be.” The Doctor looked around again, half expecting—someone—to be standing beside him. Reaching for him. But he was very much alone. “Time to go on, I suppose. Alone.”

“You are never alone, my Doctor. Remember that.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for sticking with this story! And this verse. Special thanks for Mrs. Bertucci for her amazing Beta skills and Kelkat9 for my frantic 'is this confusing' questions.
> 
> This is not the end of Rose and the Doctor's story, not in this verse!

16.

Rose landed inside the TARDIS, or maybe not landed but—something else. She didn’t remember leaving the TARDIS and how would she have? And anyway, the Doctor assured her not even the hoards of Genghis Khan could get through those doors.

Why was she thinking like that again? She hadn’t left the TARDIS, she—

Frowning, Rose looked around her bedroom, the muted rose-colored walls, the plush carpeting she loved to sink her toes in. Her mobile sat on the table and she snatched it up, glancing at it, but no call from Mum or Mickey.

Confused, she smoothed down her shirt, the new one she wanted to wear with the Union Jack, grabbed a jacket, and stepped for the door and their latest adventure. Just then the TARDIS shook and she raced from her room, down the hall, and into the console room where the Doctor already awaited her.

“What’s the emergency?” she called as she bounced off a coral strut.

“It’s mauve.” The Doctor said this as if she knew what he meant.

Narrowly avoiding an eye roll Rose repeated, “Mauve?”

“The universally recognized color for danger.” Again with the dribbled on her shirt comment and this time she did roll her eyes. 

“What happened to red?”

And so began their latest adventure.

****  
Bow-Tie-Wearing-Doctor-Who-Traveled-With Clara stepped into his TARDIS, Clara right behind him. He turned to look at her, watching her for the last time. Well, the last time as this man, in this body. She grinned up at him, seemingly unaware of what was about to happen and—

The TARDIS doors closed—

“Where to, Old Girl?” the Doctor asked the empty console room. 

He adjusted his bowtie, feeling oddly lost for a moment in his own TARDIS. Looking around the spiffier, fancier interior than the one he remembered from when he first regenerated after the Time War, he wondered where—

But no one else stood in the room, who had he expect? 

Huh. Hadn’t thought about that desktop theme in ages. What made him do so now? The Doctor shook his head and set a course for the Vortex, and why were they out of the Vortex in the first place? He thought of the Time War every day, those last moments, the isolation and loneliness, but not necessarily what pressing that button did to his TARDIS.

Shaking himself, a feat that now jangled his arms and legs far more than any previous incarnation, the Doctor double checked the TARDIS’s readouts and patted her console.

“We’re all right, aren’t we Sexy.” He winked up at the Time Rotor and turned for the living quarters and his family.

_Welcome home, my Doctor._

********  
Flat-Haired-Pinstriped-Doctor stepped into his TARDIS, his last hope that the timeline he just left really did dissipate into the far corners of the universe. That he didn’t lose Rose, his hearts, to an alternate dimension even if she still had him. A him. That Jenny hadn’t died. That Donna remembered him. That Martha’s life wasn’t ruined.

That—that—that—

He vanished.

 ********  
Doctor-Who-Traveled-With-Jenny opened the door to his TARDIS, Jenny right behind him. Neither looked at the other, both knowing that this timeline, the one where they spent centuries searching for Rose, had successfully been erased.

“I’ll drop you off at your TARDIS, eh?”

“Dad—”

“I know.” He turned to look at his daughter and—

The TARDIS doors closed—

“Where to, Old Girl?” the Doctor asked the empty console room.

He adjusted his bowtie, feeling oddly lost for a moment in his own TARDIS. Looking around the spiffier, fancier interior than the one he remembered from when he first regenerated after the Time War, he wondered where—

Huh. Hadn’t thought about that desktop theme in ages. What made him do so now? The Doctor shook his head and set a course for the Vortex, and why were they out of the Vortex in the first place? He thought of the Time War every day, those last moments, the isolation and loneliness, but not necessarily what pressing that button did to his TARDIS.

Shaking himself, a feat that now jangled his arms and legs far more than any previous incarnation, the Doctor double checked the TARDIS’s readouts and patted her console.

“We’re all right, aren’t we Sexy.” He winked up at the Time Rotor and turned for the living quarters and his family.

_Welcome home, my Doctor._

********  
“Doctor!” Rose called to the man who was and was not yet her husband. The world muddied, sloughed around her what had to be time slowing. She reached for Her Youngest Doctor even as she felt Her Doctor’s hand around hers.

Time tugged at her, a suffocating weight Rose fought through. She had to save the Doctor, had to—

Then she blinked and looked around the TARDIS. “I’m home?”

The next second, the Doctor— _Her Doctor_ —stood before her. His hands cupped her face and his eyes, wild and oh so alien—frantic and angry and dangerous—met hers.

“Rose. My hearts, are you all right?”

“Yes.” She kissed him, pressing her lips frantically to his. “I’m all right. I’m fine.”

The clamoring in her head eased, whether from being inside the TARDIS, _their_ TARIDS, or she landed or appeared or whatever back in her correct timestream. Either way, her family’s shouting eased though she still needed to contact them and see her children with her own eyes.

“Doctor.” She wrapped her arms around him and held tight. “Are _you_ all right?” She pulled back and ran her fingers through his hair. “What happened?”

He didn’t answer right away but kissed her again, deepening the kiss, desperate and hungry. Rose lost herself in the kiss, in the feel of his body, the familiar spark of his touch.

“Don’t ever leave me again, my hearts.” The Doctor breathed against her mouth, forehead pressed hard to hers. “Please don’t.”

“I didn’t mean to leave you now,” she joked softly and pulled back. “What happened? How’d we end up back here?” Rose frowned. “How’d I end up there to begin with?”

“Time Storm.” He said it so confidently she believed him. “It scooped you up and spit you out on Karn.”

Well, almost believed him. “Why me? Clara sat literally right next to me and wasn’t scooped up.” Rose narrowed her eyes. “Unless she was, and you didn’t tell me.” Her stomach dropped, and her chest tightened. “Is that why Jenny looked so sad? Did something happen to Clara?”

“No.” The Doctor brushed her hair back and offered a slight smile. “She and Jenny left in Jenny’s TARDIS to find everyone else. Check on them.”

“So I was the target.” Rose let out a slow huff of breath. “By the Sisterhood?”

The Doctor’s eyes darkened, forcibly reminding Rose of his younger self and the anger—and hopelessness—there. “No.” For all his anger, the word slid softly over her. “I don’t think so. I thought so, it seemed that way, who else would take you?”

“They wanted me—us—” Rose shook her head. “They didn’t want us together, they wanted—” she swallowed— “if they wanted to stop us so badly, if they wanted to make sure our children were never born—h” her voice lowered into a growl and she sounded much like the wolf the Sisterhood accused her of being.

“If they wanted all that, wanted to change time or history or both, then why try only once? You were right, well younger you, when you said they had the entirety of the Time War to find you. Why didn’t they?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor admitted. “Maybe they were trapped on Karn, I don’t remember hearing much about them during the War. In fact,” he said slowly, eyes distant. “I don’t remember hearing about them at all.”

His eyes met hers. Bleak and broken, despite their years together and the healing Rose hoped she brought to him. She grabbed his hand and threaded their fingers together, keeping that physical touch they both so craved. They didn’t need it anymore, not to communicate, but touch—hand holding—had been their first foray into intimacy.

She tugged him against her and kissed him hard, only pulling back when she felt him relax. Hands gentle on his, Rose led him from the console room door and toward their bedroom.

Once there, Rose walked onto their balcony, now overlooking the calm, pink waters of Jahoo, where they married so many years ago. Silent, shoulders easing now that they’d returned home, Rose sat on the chaise and pulled the Doctor down with her.

They took a moment to arrange themselves, Rose leaning against the back and holding the Doctor to her. He needed the comfort—frankly she did as well. But she hadn’t disappeared from right outside their TARDIS, and she’d always been with the Doctor.

Rose tightened her arms around him as he settled his head on her chest, directly over her single heart. She ran her fingers through his hair and closed her eyes. The comfort worked both ways.

“Do you remember that?” she whispered into the silence.

Their curtains fluttered gently in the breeze, the faint scent of the salty, flowery, and mildly poisonous, ocean soothed her. Rose looked at the pink sunset and opened her mouth to ask the TARDIS to change the scenery. Back to Gallifrey. 

She closed her mouth.

“Do you remember me being on Karn?” She asked instead, running her fingers through the Doctor’s hair. “Do you remember seeing me on Gallifrey, in that cabin, with all your…all the others?”

Rose bit her lip and tried to erase the images of Her Youngest Doctor. The broken, angry man who ran with her on Karn, held her hand though he didn’t know her, stood beside her. She swallowed tears and took a moment before she trusted herself to speak again. The Doctor hadn’t said a word, but she felt him relax in increments.

“Do you—” her voice broke and Rose swallowed hard, but the next words came out in a choked whisper— “do you remember what happened?”

She hadn’t wanted to ask that. Rose wanted to know what he remembered about being there, what happened after, anything other than that.

“I remember being on Karn.” The Doctor captured her hand and kissed her fingers. “I remember running through the tunnels, out of the cave and for the TARDIS.”

He threaded their fingers together and rested them on his chest, holding her tightly to him. The Doctor turned slightly and looked up at her, his brown eyes devastated. “I don’t remember you, my hearts. I never questioned why I ran through those tunnels or why I was there in the first place. I had a lot of memory problems in that regeneration, but—”

The Doctor broke off—broke. He choked on a sob and clutched her hand. Rose pressed her lips together on her own sob, but then the Doctor sniffed and drew her down, holding her close on the chaise.

“You didn’t remember me,” she whispered, absurdly distressed over that. “What happened after—after—”

The Doctor tightened his hold on her and kissed the top of her head. “I stopped the Time War. Ended the Daleks and the Time Lords.”

Rose shifted around to face him. She wrapped her arms around him, eyes closed against her own tears. “I wanted to be there for you.” She swallowed but the move only made her throat ache more. “I never wanted you to be alone.”

“I know, my hearts.” The Doctor kissed the top of her head. “I had to do it. I had to—” he sucked in a breath— “there was no one else.”

“There’s me.” She held him tighter and kissed him hard. “There’s always me.”

Eyes glittering with tears, the Doctor nodded and tucked her head against his chest where his double heartbeat did their best to sooth her.

“What about the Sisterhood?” Rose jerked back. Eyes wide her mind frantically reached out for her children. “Are they—did they—is the planet—” she couldn’t finish the sentence, unable to voice the destruction she both feared and wanted on that planet.

What kind of person did that make her? To want the entire planet destroyed because that woman, the high priestess or whoever, wanted to wipe her children from the universe?

“They were caught in the wave,” he admitted. “Karn was too close to Gallifrey, too much a part of events—no matter how I tried, I couldn’t—” he looked up at the ceiling eyes closed. “Like Women Wept, Karn is frozen in time, every living thing on the surface destroyed.”

“I’m sorry.” Sick to her stomach at the idea, but weak with relief over her family’s safety, Rose swallowed several times and waited for the nausea to subside.

“I know. I know.”

They lay like that for a long time, wrapped around each other in the safety and comfort of their bedroom on their TARDIS. Rose might’ve dozed, so content and relieved after the running adrenaline of the day.

“Why would the Sisterhood want our family wiped from the universe?” she asked, half awake, half asleep. Rose blinked open her eyes and focused on the Doctor. “Why our family? Or, rather, why yours? Did they hate you that much they wanted to wipe you from the universe?” A shiver danced over her skin, but she forced the next word out anyway. “And how did they know about Bad Wolf?”

“Bad Wolf isn’t linear. And the Sisterhood, they’ve always had—well, not magic per se, but they see timelines in different ways than Time Lords. Call themselves seers.” He snorted but that tension had returned. Rose ran her hand down his back, up to caress the bare skin of his neck. “I don’t know what they saw that made them want to change the universe so drastically.”

“They wanted to destroy my family,” Rose spat. “I don’t need Bad Wolf or timelines to know that’s why I went back. To save our family.”

He did smile then, the faintest twitch of his lips, but after a moment it grew to that half-smile and his eyes softened. “You might not have all the power of the Vortex running in you, my hearts, but you’re still a snarling She-Wolf.”

Rose laughed, as she knew she was meant to, and kissed her husband softly. “Let’s find our daughters.”

“In a minute.” The Doctor rolled onto his back, legs hanging off the chaise, and pulled her to him. Rose rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes. “I want to hold you.”

“Forever,” she whispered.

“Forever.”


End file.
